NY Launch Pod: Welcome to the New York Launch Pod, the New York Press Club award-winning podcast, highlighting the most interesting new startups, businesses and openings in the New York City area. I’m your host and New York attorney Hal Coopersmith. And in this episode, we speak to Maria Luisa Mendiola, founder of MIGA Swimwear, a company focused on body positivity with designs for people with disfigurement and other chronic health issues. And Maria has an interesting journey to starting her company:
Maria Luisa Mendiola: And because having certain health conditions carries such stigma because it all comes down to, you know, like this idea that our body has to look a certain way, that if we have some sort of health condition, we shouldn’t tell people. I’m trying to change that. Like, that’s such a big part of our mission because for so long, I, myself felt like I couldn’t be forthright of what my health condition was because I was scared because I was scared of what it meant for me, for my future children. I just don’t want people to go through that. So that’s why I think this market is so tough is because everything should be universal. We shouldn’t need to have an adaptive brand. Anything should be, you know, taking into account people that have limited mobility, but that’s not the case.
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NY Launch Pod: So you decided to start a different form of swimwear line. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: It comes from my personal experience with having a disfigurement or a body difference, I was born with short fourth toes, so my feet look very differently in my footprint as well. And I always felt very self-conscious when I would go to the beach or the pool. I would hide my feet as much as possible. I wouldn’t wear flip flops and it wasn’t until I started my Master’s in Design at Central St. Martins that I started playing with the idea of creating garments that could empower you to share your story, because I found out that one of the reasons why I was so passionate about swimwear is because I would pick bold, colorful swimwear to kind of detract from my difference. And so I kind of wanted to flip swimwear on its head and use it actually as a way to be much more direct with what your differences and as a way to empower you and make you feel much more comfortable when you’re wearing bathing suits. Because when you’re wearing bathing suits, you know, you’re kind of like almost naked, right? It’s like a very vulnerable experience. And so I just started thinking like, how awesome would it be to create a swimwear brand that helps you own whatever you think makes you different, negatively and turn that into a positive.
NY Launch Pod: How are your designs made to empower the people who wear them?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: So we work directly with our community. We make no assumptions of what can make you feel comfortable about going to the beach or the pool. And so the way that it works is that we crowdsource our designs at the beginning of every single one of our collections. We sent out a survey to our community members and anyone can join. So if anyone of your listeners wants to join we’re here, but we asked very simple questions. Like, what do you think would make you feel much more comfortable about going to the beach or the pool? What part of your body do you feel the most insecure? And why is that? And from the stories that we get, we select a couple of stories and name the bathing suits after them. So for example, the Collette, which is a tankini set in lime green that we currently have online, it’s inspired by this woman who was born with a rare condition that caused her butt to be assymmetrical and she always felt very, self-conscious going to the beach or the pool. And so what we did for her is that she asked us for a skirt also within her design. A lot of people ask for tankini, specifically wheelchair users. So we decided to make a more, I like to think a cooler tankini, cause a lot of the tankinis you see out there in the market have a lot of frills and a lot of just, it comes in like dark colors only. And so we wanted to make it something like vibrant and cool to really empower women, to be able to relax in these spaces. That again, because of my experience and because of the amount of women that I’ve gotten, the opportunity to tell me that have different conditions, whether it’s a burn scar or they feel very self-conscious about their cellulite, whatever it is, I’m hearing all these stories. The experience is very similar. And so by crowd designing all of our styles, we’re able to get more designs out there that make more people feel comfortable when they go to these places that should be relaxed.
NY Launch Pod: So I love the idea that you’re creating community. I feel like your designs are certainly built for that. And creating community for a brand I think is very important. And certainly a lot of people are talking about that, but where did you start? Because I kind of feel like it’s a little bit of a chicken and the egg. Did you start with the community first and then the designs, or you had your first design and then built a community?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: Community first, because for me it was a quest to find other people that had gone through a similar experience. Growing up, I got a lot of comments like, your short toe, like no one can notice. And like people definitely notice people definitely ask questions and I always feel so self-conscious. And I was like, there has to be other people who have experienced, you know, even random people asking you, like, what’s wrong with X part of your body. And by finding pockets of honesty, like the strongest and most resilient women that I’ve ever gotten to meet, I started to become clear to me that we needed to create a brand around this feeling of overcoming whatever it is that you feel negative towards your body, because obviously like the way that you build your body image or like your body esteem, which are like the perceptions that you have about your body and how others react to how your body looks is something that is incredibly personal. And so I thought, well, what if we could create like a platform where people could share these stories? And so not only do we share the stories through the swimwear and that way, you know, raise awareness and also, and empathy towards these different conditions, but then you also have the other part, which is our blog. And while we were trying to figure out our whole supply chain, the blog is truly what kept it cohesive, how we started to building community. And also, I want to say the importance of social media in me finding people, whether it was people who had the same rare condition that caused them to have feet like mine or people have like psoriasis, eczema, people who have burn injuries, people who have different chronic illnesses like ulcerative colitis, social media, opened that door to start creating that community before the product. So by the time we did the Kickstarter campaign, we already had that community rallying after us, which went hand in hand.
NY Launch Pod: So I kind of feel like you have a natural sense of community as opposed to other brands, which could be a little bit more of an advantage, but you talked about building your community on social media. How did you go about building the community first? Because you said that that was the first thing that you did do. How did you find the tribe?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: One of the wonders of being a student, right, is that you can knock on anyone’s door and people I think are much more open to reaching back out. So when I decided that I wanted to focus on finding community of people who looked differently, I started working with actually a burns unit in the UK. And that’s when I started finding our first volunteers. Actually one of our volunteers has become a really tremendous advocate for people who look differently. Her name is Sylvia Mac. And so this was back in 2016, where I started meeting patients from this burns unit who had been reaching out to the people, work in the burn unit saying, hey, do you know anyone who makes swimwear with specific cuts so that it offers me SPF protection, but also, you know, they offer some coverage because I’m not ready to show my scars and that’s kind of how it started. So I met some patients through there people that had been previously patients, but I have since then left the burns unit, I then started working with other organizations. And that has been a part of it working with organizations like Changing Faces UK, like Global Genes here in the US but then I also kind of complimented with social media because social media, as you know, a lot of us know, like as democratized, what content we find out there. And so people who were already like all about this is my story, and I’m going to own it because there’s something super important that happens once you own your story. I mean, this business has been incredibly. I like to say it’s selfish because of this business, the first thing that you know about me was the biggest secret that I had, which was that I have a genetic condition that caused me to have different feet. And so I started also looking for people in social media who understood that there’s so much good that can come out from sharing your story, that want to have that courage to come out and just tell their story. And so finding these people online was actually easier than I thought whether it was like Facebook groups, mostly Instagram is where I started to reach out to people being like, hey, I love how you’re telling your story and I wonder if you would like to tell it in our community. And so I, one of the examples is this lady, Jenny, who I met through social media, who then wrote a blog for us on what it’s like dating with having a facial difference and her experience on dating apps. And then Jenny now not only was one of our Kickstarter supporters, but then she also has purchased the swim suit. You know? So then you have people who feel seen and felt connected, and also feel like we were one of the first people there backing swimwear. And I think that loyalty is something that is so important to us right now. I’m kind of like toying with the idea of creating a kind of like loyalty group within the community of people who have been there since day one and bringing more people in and making sure that people who may not have experience with having a disability or disfigurement also feel included and also want to help us in crowd design, because obviously the problem of not feeling comfortable in your body is a universal issue, right? It’s not something that only affects people who have disfigurements or disabilities.
NY Launch Pod: You talked about how swimwear can be empowering, and that’s why you want it to start there. But do you have any plans to go to different forms of attire?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: Absolutely. I mean, we also get a lot of questions by a lot of men that have colotomy bags. We’ve had also men who have burn scars have reached out because there’s this market there that hasn’t been tapped yet where we’re expecting more from a product. Right. And I think COVID-19 has kind of brought health and how can we can be healthier and how we can keep our communities healthy to the forefront. And so now we’re going to be expecting more from our products. So currently all of our bathing suits have SPF 50 protection. They’re made to last are very durable. They have antibacterial treatments on them, but what I think is going to happen now with COVID-19 is we’re going to see the customer demanding more, and when you’re making less purchases, but the purchases that you’re doing have much more of an intent. So in the future, we definitely want to go into not only resort wear and other types of clothing, but definitely to like men’s wear and making sure that again, we’re telling these stories so more people feel represented.
NY Launch Pod: Why do you think there are very few players in this market?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: It’s a difficult market.
NY Launch Pod: What’s difficult about it?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: I think the first thing is health conditions, right? There’s such a stigma around having a health condition. When you say to a lot of people, when you say that they’re adaptive clothing, meaning it’s universal, it can be used for anyone. If anything, it’s easier to put on, like take, for example, a one piece that has a really long pole in the back. So you can easily close the sipper that benefits anybody. But sometimes when you use the word adaptive people who are not disabled may think, well, this is not for me. And because having certain health conditions carries such stigma, because it all comes down to, you know, like this idea that our body has to look a certain way, that if we have some sort of health condition, like we might, we shouldn’t tell people. And then like, I’m trying to change that. That’s such a big part of our mission, because for so long, I, myself felt like I couldn’t be forthright of what my health condition was because I was scared because I was scared of what it meant for me, for my future children. I was, and I just don’t want people to go through that. So that’s why I think this market is so tough is because everything should be universal. We shouldn’t need to have an adaptive brand. Everything should be, you know, taking into account people that have limited mobility, but that’s not the case. And it’s not the case because it’s been that information hasn’t been there. And people who have disabilities are also not in the decision rooms of where these collections are being done. And so that’s why it’s so important that we do crowd design, because I shouldn’t be telling you, what’s going to make you feel comfortable to the beach or the pool. Like as a designer, my job in this world is to take the information that I’m given and make sure that we’re fulfilling that demand.
NY Launch Pod: So how many different designs do you have at the moment?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: So at the moment we have five designs. So five designs means five different stories. Each bag has a name of the woman that has shared their story in each canvas bag, but the five styles are representation of a bunch of requests that we received. So, as I mentioned, we got a lot of requests, for example, for people that have different skin conditions that can cause certain discomforts in the armpits. So we made sure that, like, for example, all of our long sleeves have wrangling sleeves, and then there’s no seams at your armpit. So that’s comfortable. We also got a lot of requests for more coverage, like long sleeve. So we did that and as I also mentioned too, we also got requests for people who are wheelchair users to make tikinis.
NY Launch Pod: So you have this obstacle of you have different audiences and different demands for a product and then you also talked about de-stigmatizing your designs. How are you able to market to both people with different body types and conditions, as well as a larger audience?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: That’s a great question. And to be completely honest, that’s something that I’m still trying to find the answer just because there’s so much stigma around terms like disability or adaptive, where we are right now is we at first were very focused on being mission led and focused on saying that we were being inclusive of people with different health conditions. And now we have pivoted into being a brand that focuses on making people feel comfortable and confident when going to the beach or the pool, regardless of whether they have a health condition and that has been a way for us to make sure that we’re not losing people who for example are able-bodied because that is a huge part of our mission to make sure that people have somewhat of an understanding so that, you know, once they’re in a room with someone who has a disability, they feel much more equipped to have a conversation because there’s so much misunderstandings and generalizations and stereotypes of what the disability community looks like and it can achieve. So I think that by sharing the stories that we share of our community, we’re able to overcome that, but we’re not able to overcome that if we’re losing half of the people that we’re supposed to be having these conversations with. Right? So the way that we’ve been doing it right now is we’re also working with big retailers that focus on adaptive lines so that they can help us find more customers in that group. And then we can do a DTC. But again, this is just very early stages. This year we hired a marketing agency to just get a better understanding how we could position and better communicate our brand’s mission and what we’re trying to do. So it’s a work in progress.
NY Launch Pod: Do you have any manufacturing difficulties that a traditional manufacturer or direct to consumer brand would not have?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: Right now? No, but as we start to work with more magnets and different types of trims, that might be the case. The hardest manufacturing part of our process that we had this year is that we were doing bathing suits with snaps, for the belt that is inspired by a woman who has ulcerative colitis and has a stoma bag. But, I think as we go deeper into adaptative, where the trims are going to become much more difficult, just because it takes a specific supplier to do that. And also like the trims are sometimes harder to source. I mean, you would have asked me this question like three years ago, it was so hard. I did not have a background in production. And I had this kind of like learn as I go attitude that really, when it comes to production, you just really need someone who knows what they’re doing. And so I just look back at it and think, you know, how lost I was. And now I think, you know, it really took a lot of hard knocks and getting humble about asking people for help. And that’s actually how we were able to find our production dream team, which made it then easier to execute on the designs that I had and make sure that we were taking into account every single detail that our community asked us to do. So now I’m so confident on where our product is, but I would have not been able to like, again, three years ago, I would not.
NY Launch Pod: So you talked about the stories in terms of creating the designs. You talked about your own story in terms of the community and having a line just for your target audience, individuals with disabilities and disfigurement. What does this brand mean to them?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: All I can think of is feeling seen, and these feelings of arriving. You know, like I have arrived to my destination, where the experience of feeling like you’re the only one that struggles with part of your body or feeling like misunderstood and isolated is something that is very common and getting to hear the feedback from our community members. Like I hadn’t been back swimming since my change in appearance, and now I was able to go back swimming with my eight year old son, you know, like I think we take not for granted, but like, we really don’t understand how therapeutic being in a body of water or taking the time that goes with being close to a beach or to a pool. And the effects of that has on us. And so making sure that our members feel as comfortable and confident, they can in their own body as is, and getting to hear those reviews is truly like what makes our journey worth it.
NY Launch Pod: Well, that is a wonderful note to end things on Maria Luisa Mendiola, thank you for stepping onto the New York Launch Pod and sharing your time with us. How do people find out more about you and MIGA Swimwear?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: Yeah. So you guys can find us at migaswimwear.com. We’re also on Instagram and we’re offering a 15% discount to your audience members with code NYLAUNCH.
NY Launch Pod: Well, our audience will certainly very much appreciate that. And if you want to learn more about the New York Launch Pod, you can follow us on social media @nylaunchpod. And for transcripts of every episode, including this one, you can visit nylaunchpod.com. And if you are a super fan of the New York Launch Pod, Maria, are you a super fan of the New York Launch Pod?
Maria Luisa Mendiola: Yes!
NY Launch Pod: If you’re a super fan like Maria, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It is greatly appreciated and does help people discover the show.
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