Launched last week at Chillers Showroom in P.B. at a party full of chocolate chip meringues and acoustic music, new Del Mar-based bikini brand Sura is setting out to prove that suits can be body-conscious and unselfconscious at the same time.
Colors range from solid black and turquoise to gorgeous paisley prints in plums, blues, and corals. Top options include halters and triangles, and the bottoms feature ultra-flattering ruching at the top of the derriere (see below) and come in side-tied and shirred styles. They’re also all Brazilian cut.
Here’s where the unselfconscious part comes in: The fabrics are a smooth blend of tri-cotton sourced from Oregon and Spandex, and refreshingly, the suits all feature a clean finish entirely free of seams. The hardware is lightweight, beautifully imagined, and Italian-made, with a varnish that’ll hold up to many trips into the water. Even the tag is not a tag, but a heat transfer placed directly on the fabric.
“I’ve had a remarkable response with women expressing how comfortable it is. When you’re at the beach for hours you don’t want to feel something that’s digging into you and bothering you,” says founder and designer Tracy Cohn, who interned for Rebecca Minkoff while attending FIT in New York, and later went on to work in the design department of lingerie brand Milli and in costume design in L.A. Noting that she also wears the tops as bras sometimes under white tanks, Cohn says, “What I wanted with the whole line is for girls to feel confident no matter what shape or size they are, [and] whether she’s a surfer or wants to lounge in the sun.”
The tops and bottoms are $52 each, and are available at Chillers in P.B.
