Athleta debuts Suit Up campaign

After years of vigorously testing their designs on athletes, the company teamed up with notable female figures including 3x world champion kite surfer Moona Whyte, 2x medalist and ISLA National Lifeguarding Champion Alice Henley, 2x FINA silver medal cliff diver Ginger Huber, and synchronized swim team The Aqualillies for the launch of Suit Up, the brand's new swimwear campaign. The Aqualillies helped debut the collection in a SoHo townhouse last week, with a synchronized swim performance.

One of Athleta's main goals with this campaign was to celebrate female empowerment. "We want to women to feel the way about summer the way they did when we were little girls, before being self conscious and caring about what we looked like" said Andrea Mallard, chief marketing officer of Athleta, to FashionUnited. "What you cared about then was summer and the amazing fun things you could do in the water. So, we wanted to find some adult women who still had that spirit. After searching high and low, we found these empowered amazing women."

Athleta debuts women empowerment focused Suit Up campaign

After Athleta met with these women, it was practically love at first sight when they instantly agreed to bring them all on board for this endeavor. By casting these women in this campaign Athleta is getting people to talk about how swimsuits work rather than how they look, hence the inspiration for the underwater fashion show featuring the Aqualillies.

While Athleta's always been an athletic wear company, this new collection for the Suit Up campaign included more high performance materials than they had done in the past. "Swimsuits are typically performance based and not aesthetically pleasing or they are fashion swimsuits. What we said, is we want to design high performance suits that don't look like high performance suits," Mallard said. "We wanted to create the kind of swimsuits that you could either lounge around by the pool in or go kite surfing in. We married the two together. We made sure more of the fabrics are sustainable because this collection is about water and the Earth. There's UPF protection in these swimsuits, which means you don't have to wear as much sunscreen, so that's great for the coral reefs."

The swimsuits also incorporate fabric wear technology to stop them from slipping off, bunching and stretching. Sustainability has become a major part of Athleta's brand DNA since they received their B Corp rating in 2018. Since then, the brand has set a target for themselves to ensure that 80 percent of their fabrics come from sustainable sources.

Aside from sustainability, Athleta is also taking global initiatives to empower women as well. "Companies forget about empowering the women who work in their factories all the time, but we are about empowering women near and far," Mallard said. "We've helped develop a program for women who work in our factories to have the option of going through that's about educational empowerment. We give them the life skills they need to be more autonomous, to take care of their own money, to make their own decisions."

Water conversation has also been a big initiative for the company as well as they work on better manufacturing and production processes to make sure no waste is going in the water. The brand's commitment to eco-friendly initiatives and women's empowerment has been great for business, even in a market that has been very challenging for many retail brands.

Millennials have begun flocking to the brand because they are impressed by what Athleta does and how they do it. Currently, they are Athleta's fastest growing customer base.

While Athleta's popularity grew during the peak of the athleisure movement, they have since evolved into being more of an entire lifestyle brand to appeal to a wider base of customers too. "It's not really about athleisure anymore, it's about athlife," Mallard said. "Part of what we are trying to do is figure out how to include performance benefits and technology into your whole life. We recently launched Sculptek denim, which are our jeans that you can do yoga or rock climbing in. It's about pushing into all aspects of your life, not just the leisure."

Price points for the collection range from 49 dollars to 98 dollars. It is currently available at Athleta stores and on Athleta.com.

photos: courtesy of Athleta