AHEAD OF THE CURVE - GIRL GOT CURVES
Miranda Haston, founder and designer of bikini brand Girl Got Curves, is on a journey to spread body positivity to beaches around the world
“In 2017, the fashion industry and society was a very different place. There wasn’t body positivity in the UK and there weren’t any retailers that were specially making clothes for plus-size women in a fashionable way,” says Miranda Haston, the founder and designer of Girl Got Curves (GGC), the plus-size bikini label coming out of Faversham.
“It has been a fantastic shift. And being a plus-size woman, it was incredible to see representation,” she explains. “It’s an interesting thing because representation doesn’t mean you go ‘Well, I love being fat, it’s great’ – representation means just showing different body types.”
Miranda started GGC four years ago after being dissatisfied with the products on offer at both regular high-street stores and online.
“It was inspired by my love for wearing bikinis but not actually being able to wear them,” she says. “I was fed up that retailers and designers weren’t thinking about how plus-size bodies worked.
“There was this real push towards plus-size women covering up on the beach. And actually plus-size women want to show off their bodies and be in a skimpy bikini, too.”
Despite having no business or even fashion background, Miranda turned her frustration into a strategic plan to take a piece of a market that was in its infancy in the UK.
“I was working out that other women were in the same boat as me,” she says. “In America, they were a lot further ahead than us in plus-sized fashion and body acceptance and there was this organisation that worked with plus-size models and did plus-size pool parties and I saw what they were doing and added my own thoughts on how women should feel about their bodies and feel on the beach.”
Starting out with some research on how to start a bikini line, Miranda developed sketches and had designs made up to get a feel for the product she wanted to create.
“From there, I went to swimwear trade shows in France – that’s where they tend to have them – met suppliers, worked out what this industry was and what I would need and how much it would cost,” she explains.
Having found a manufacturer, she set about building the brand.
“Before I had any product, I was just sharing really good energy pictures,” says Miranda. “The goal was to get a woman to want to buy the bikini, feel comfortable in the bikini, and it would give her that sense of confidence on the beach.
“At any size, if your clothes don’t fit you, you probably feel uncomfortable and I wanted to take that away. It was about reminding women that they’re perfect the way they are and worth wearing a bikini.”
The GGC bikinis start at size 14 and go up in ‘normal’ scale but, as Miranda explains, there’s no such thing as a consistent scale across the board.
“Even though there’s a standard sizing, most brands go by their own sizing. So I went for what would be the average size-16 woman, the average size-18 woman etc. It’s not on a traditional scale because with plus-size bodies you may have a stomach or bigger thighs and hips. We worked with certain fabrics that give you more on those sizes. So, if you were to put on weight or lose weight, you wouldn’t necessarily have to go and get a brand-new bikini.”
INTERNATIONAL
Some four years on and GGC is a worldwide brand, spreading its body positivity and shipping its product to all corners of the globe.
“My biggest audience is in America, but we’ve also shipped to Portugal, Iceland and a few other European countries. My other products sell worldwide to places like Australia and New Zealand.”
A big part of the brand has been the use of real women in the marketing of the bikinis.
“Yeah, sometimes I work with models on sets and I will be in control of all the imagery, but other times it is influencer, model-type women, who get fantastic photos for their own socials. And sometimes it’s just customers who feel and look great and want to share them with me and send their photos to use.”
The effect it has had has been obvious, with more than 7,000 followers across Insta and Facebook, as well as recognition in some of the biggest fashion magazines in the world.
“We’ve been in the US Refinery29, Cosmopolitan, Glamour and in the Independent’s Indy Best List,” says Miranda. “I’ve reached out to the journalists to ask how they found us or came across us, but I think it’s just social media. I’m very active on it and have some good relationships with people in the community, so it gets shared and gets good exposure.”
As with any social media outlet, seemingly, negative comments are unfortunately almost a guarantee, but Miranda isn’t fussed and is instead focused on what GGC offers.
“Everyone deserves respect, no matter who you are. Doing this and the things I do to help women work towards loving their bodies, or providing them with a bikini for a body they already love, is so that young girls don’t suffer from mental-health problems and all different ways that having that self-hatred can affect you.
“I don’t really care when people say negative comments – this is to help women be happy in their lives.”
There has been positive change in relation to plus-size representation in high-profile media and fashion, and Miranda believes that for big businesses it made sense to change their standpoint on sizing.
“I think within the fashion industry they quickly realised how much the plus-sized market is worth – an untapped source they were missing out on,” she says.
“America was tapping into it years ago and tapping into it on a high-level designer basis that we just weren’t. Brands like Asos and Pretty Little Thing were pioneers in that and were making sure they were actually celebrating all women.”
And that can only be a good thing.
INSTA: @girlgotcurvesuk
INFO: girlgotcurves.com
