Photo by Marina Lnakina
sustainable swimwear for all
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an interview with Bella Morena Swimwear
interviewed by SAMANTHA PELTRAU
March.01.2021
Lilian Gomes and Marcelle Amorim, founders of Bella Morena Swimwear, have crafted a powerful brand that not only aims to empower and inspire women, but to also save the planet. This sustainable swimwear brand utilizes award winning new technology to create biodegradable fabrics for their size inclusive and wide range of swimwear. As sustainability becomes increasingly vital for the preservation of our Earth, brands such as Bella Morena Swimwear challenge the norm of wasteful and discriminative fashion practices. In this interview, Lilian talks about her brand’s philosophy, sustainability, and most recent Women in Power Collection.
Bella Morena Swimwear creates chic and trendy swimwear with nothing, but the most positive intentions and the most flattering silhouettes. You can check out the brand on Instagram @shopbellamorena, on Facebook as BM Swimwear, and on their Website https://bellamorena.store/
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Read our interview with Bella Morena Swimwear to learn more about their amazing work!
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Bella mORENA sWIMWEAR
size inclusive, Biodegradable, & CHIC SWIMWEAR
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The main tenets of your brand are connecting the Mind, Body, and Soul through clothing. Why are sustainability and self-awareness so important to your brand?
We are focused on uplifting the combination of self care and awareness. We are stepping out of the phase of "contemplating an empty vessel", we are way more than how we look, and when you do good you feel good.
Bella Morena Swimwear makes sustainable swimwear much more accessible and affordable to those looking to be more environmentally conscious.
Our main focus is to make our brand and sustainability accessible to everyone. We want to urge people to reconsider the idea of sustainability being inaccessible. At Bella Morena we believe that even small steps into sustainability can be something big in a large scale so that is how we are trying to improve step by step. We believe in the following things...
- Slow Fashion
- Plastic free ( in Home and Clothing products)
- Vegetarianism ( Marcelle one of the partners is vegetarian transitioning to vegan)
- Recycling
We also create some challenges that we bounce around between close friends, and at least once a week we introduce a new sustainable habit in our life.
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Your Women In Power collection is a wonderful testament to the influence of dynamic women. What motivated you to create this collection?
Throughout our creative process we have worked with so many inspiring and powerful individuals. These women have been a powerful force in creating the urgency to empower women. With this in mind we decided to name all of our pieces after historical powerful women mixing it up with some inspirational women amongst us today. These individuals inspire many people and will continue to do so.
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Your brand uses biodegradable material with a Brazilian technology called Amni Soul Eco®. How did you come into contact with this technology
Our process of creation was completely developed by us, and it was important that every single piece of the final product represents exactly what we believe. This amazing fabric won many awards around the world and is a unique Brazilian technology. With a lot of research we were able to use and present this novel textile to our customers who seem to be in love and very enthusiastic about it so far.
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Your brand makes size inclusivity a top priority alongside sustainability. Why is inclusive sizing important to you and your brand?
Because we it would be hypocritical to claim our main focus is is the combination of Body, Mind and Soul and only create pieces that will fit one pattern/body type. There are so many beautiful souls out there in a different body shape and it would be a shame to not include them. We don't think we are doing something incredible, we are just doing the bare minimum to start the change that the fashion industry needs.
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How do you accomplish maintaining an inclusive size range? Do you have any tips for brands that are interested in expanding their size range?
The idea behind Bella Morena has always been to fill the gap of swimwear for women with different body shapes. For example, catering to women who might be bigger on the Top than on the Bottom or vice-versa. We made adjustments on our original pattern and created prototypes for a variety of shapes and sizes and gave it away to friends in exchange for honest feedback. After this open dialogue we started production of our size inclusive swimwear collection. At Bella Morena we are always listening to our customers and taking action on all of the valuable feedback we receive for our next collection.
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Your brand uses biodegradable material with a Brazilian technology called Amni Soul Eco®. How did you come into contact with this technology
Our process of creation was completely developed by us, and it was important that every single piece of the final product represents exactly what we believe, this amazing fabric won many awards around the world and is an unique brazilian technology, with a lot of research we were able to use and present that to our customers who seemed to be in love with it so far.
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How do you want your clients to feel while wearing a piece of yours?
Like Queens, knowing that if they want to they can dominate the world!
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What is the future of the fashion industry and how would you like to contribute to that future?
We truly believe and hope that we can walk into a new phase of fashion where quality and durability will be more important than quantity. Slow-fashion has massive potential and we believe the world will see the value in it too. We love to reinforce fashion transparency. Knowing who made our and your clothes clothes is priceless.
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THE AUTHORS
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Lilian Gomes, CEO and founder of Bella Morena Swimwear, alongside Co-Founder Marcelle Amorim, are the heads of Bella Morena Swimwear and can be contacted here. Check out Bella Morena Swimwear on Instagram and their website.
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Samantha Peltrau is a Junior Intern for Pangea Kali Virga at iPrep Academy. She is a radical writer passionate about sustainable and inclusive fashion as well as racial, economic, social, and political equality and change.
