MISIMBEACHBABE ties the knot with ‘Mr.SIM’ swim trunks
Published:Friday | August 9, 2024 | 12:09 AMShanel Lemmie/Staff Reporter
Simone Michelle Neilson is a part of a class of Jamaican millennials that centre creativity as a chief facet of their lives. With a legacy of craftiness embedding in even her earliest memories, Neilson can trace the beginning of her luxury swimwear brand MISIMBEACHBABE to high school when she would create bags, headband and later swimwear for her classmates.
Carrying the practice with her throughout her life, by 2014 she had established the now recognisable brand. Ten years later, she is ready to delve into a new challenge with ‘Mr.SIM’ swim trunks.
Commenting on the near constant prompts for men’s swimwear over the years Neilson joked, “I have male friends that are like, ‘do you hate us?’”
Although the public might have assumed Neilson was just for the ‘girlies’, she was quietly planning on how to bring gender parity to her brand.
“I’ve always wanted to do this, but what has held me back is the supplier source. The thing with fabric for swim trunks is that it goes by 12,000 different names. You can use so many different fabrics for it but I always wanted a very specific type of fabric to do this with. I go to New York two or three times a year and I scour down the fabric stores [and] I searched online. It’s not that I wasn’t looking, I just couldn’t find it.”
She continued, “So for me, even if I might have the idea or I might want to do it or whatever, the suppliers really do determine when things happen in whichever direction. Everything is at the mercy of the suppliers and I just could not get a consistent source of the fabric.”
By a stroke of luck or perhaps divine providence, Neilson found a local supplier that fit her vision perfectly, though it offered only a limited range of colours.
Taking a very practical approach, Neilson delved deeper into her research, asked every man she knew, and tried out different ways to represent her brand.
“I was toying with the names MISIMBEACHBOY because we have beach babe, or MISIM MAN,” she explained. “But then the little feminist in me was like Mr.SIM, he’s taking my name.”
Playing on that, the soft launch came with a marriage announcement that many people misconstrued as Neilson tying the knot.
“People were shocked, they thought I was actually getting married,” she said laughing. “But the guys were so excited. They were really happy about it. I too was very happy about it. Even when I launched the teaser and so forth, I wasn’t fully ready. We were still in productions [but I] had to roll out some kind of campaign plan and I still feel like I’m not ready even now; but I felt like it needed to happen in summer.”
The trunks, now available in yellow and green, are sold at Locale along with the rest of Neilson’s collection. Although she’s relieved to finally launch the project she’s worked on for a year, she admitted that getting here was filled with anxiety.
“Now I’m happy, but up until that point there was just so much anxiety around it because what if it’s horrible? I was worried about the sizing, I was worried bout the fit, I was worried about the comfort, I was worried about the feedback, just everything. But now it’s like, finally I can breathe now and I’m happy that people love it.”
While she put the finishing touches on another drop which will include Mr.SIM printed trunks, Neilson is currently basking in the love she feels for people loving her work.