Swim Society Search : All about our open casting!

As a brand, one of our core values is to represent as many body shapes as we can. It has always been our goal to change the standards that have been set in society surrounding the way that women’s bodies are showcased in fashion and more importantly in the swimwear industry. With all of this in mind, we felt the only way to truly represent as many people as possible was to engage with our community. So, in June we launched our Swim Society search, a social campaign calling for you to submit a video in which you showcase your story, your personality and your reason for entering.  

We were absolutely overwhelmed with incredible entries, all of our amazing applicants truly showed that this campaign was one of our most rewarding. As we scrolled through all of the entries daily, it become more and more apparent that our decision to choose just 50 to attend our open casting event days was going to be ridiculously difficult.   

So on the last week of June, we closed our entries and began the difficult task of choosing just those 50 entrants. We have to say, that the entries we received were all uniquely inspiring in their own right and if you haven’t already make sure you check the #SwimSocietySearch tag on Instagram for some seriously uplifting and empowering content. With the decision made we reached out to our wonderful group of girls and invited them all to two days of open castings in London on Oxford Street.  

Cut to day one of our event. On event days I (Laura) am always a bundle of stress and nervous energy, with everything that we do we want to ensure above all else that our community or audience has the best possible experience so that is always on my mind! We held our casting at the incredible Sook space, a retail pop up event space with locations around the UK and honestly we cannot recommend them enough! There ambassador Kirsty helped us immensely over the two days and she actually ended up casting with us as we formed such a strong connection with her, which was so amazing! The space is covered with digital screens which you can upload your own content too so we were able to display our incredible campaign videos and create a beautiful space that totally encompassed who we are. So with the space set up, the snacks in place and all of us bundles of excitement and pride we opened our doors and began two of the most incredible days of our journey so far. 

The women we met over these two days, came with such open hearts and wonderful energy we felt as though we had known them all for years. As we met and casted with each woman we began to realise that what we are doing as brand is more than just practically what we do, but it is what we say, how we represent women and the message we constantly put out to our audience. Each and every woman came with their own unique story yet were all united by their confidence and commitment to inspire and represent others. When I tell you it was beyond emotional, it doesn’t even come close. We were beyond grateful to every person we met, and even more than that grateful for the connections our applicants made with one another. As our event got busier, we realised these women were to complete embodiment of what we always wanted our community to be. A community of people committed to building each other up, celebrating one another’s uniqueness and sharing in a safe space to share their truth with each other.  

So after what can only be described as a come down from our event days, we got together to make the even more difficult decision to choose just 6 girls to cast in our UK e-comm campaign. We remembered every story these women shared with us and honestly it was so difficult to decide! However, we remembered the reason why we launched this campaign in the first place. We have always wanted to represent as many bodies as possible and here we had 6 chances to represent 6 totally different women who would then go on to inspire all different groups of our audience and the wider audience it may reach. So with this in mind, we selected our ambassadors. Cora, Tanesa, Gab, Anna, Katie and Alexandria – you can find their socials here! We are so excited to work with these incredible women, but beyond that we are just so happy to have created this amazing event. Above all else, the event only sought to prove that our brand values and intentions are more needed than ever. We have to continue to change society standards and seek to represent those who have never seen someone who looks like them in a swimwear campaign.  

If you want to get more details of our upcoming events and more open castings, sign up to our mailing list to be first to know.  

Thank you sincerely to everyone who entered and was involved, heres to the campaign!