Innes Lauren: Designing Swimwear To Endure

This summer, a capsule collection of Innes Lauren swimwear launched at Assembly Label. Innes Lauren one pieces are as classic as a white cotton tee and a pair of stonewash denim jeans; the silhouettes a love letter to the curves of a woman’s body. Designed and made with integrity in Australia, these swimsuits highlight the potential for using quality recycled textiles to create beautiful new garments. On the Journal, Innes Heywood, founder and designer of Innes Lauren, invites us inside her creative world.

Innes Heywood says she’s happiest barefoot by the water, her most liberated when she’s wearing nothing but a swimsuit. This free-spirited nature recalls a childhood spent in East Bali when the family house was a hotel suite and a young Innes roamed naked through coconut groves. Even now the smell of tuberose and incense reminds her of that peaceful period. But after years spent moving continents with her family, Innes has at last settled in a place she can call home — Byron Bay. “I find so much joy in the simplicity of my life here, surfing and being close to the ocean and nature,” she says. “It reminds me of my childhood in East Bali, which is comforting.”

The idea to design swimwear didn’t come down to a single revelation or moment, rather, it stemmed from a love of the ocean and evolved into a form of creative expression. “Innes Lauren came from a simple craving to express myself and my design ideas. I’m always thinking about what I’d like to wear next and how I can weave this into my brand,” she says. “I hear artists around me starting with a big idea and slowly working on it before they share it with the world, but for me it was the opposite. I started with a little idea and somehow it found its DNA along the way.” The growth of Innes the brand and Innes the designer and woman are inseparable. “Innes Lauren’s values have remained the same but the concept and product has changed as my business and I have grown and found our truth. I am still working on staying true to myself, which takes courage and vulnerability. Sometimes I find this difficult to embody externally and it’s something I continue to challenge myself with.”

For Innes, inspiration comes from the far corners of the world. It also comes from a sunset, a feeling, and of course memories of East Bali. “I have old photographs from my childhood — my mum in swimsuits when she was my age, my dad in silks and batik sarongs. This time in my life will always be a source of inspiration,” Innes reflects. Whether you’re meeting Innes at restaurant or at the beach, you can be sure she’ll be wearing a swimsuit, and this is what makes her designs so intuitive. “Essentially, the Innes Lauren woman is me. I don't know how to design any other way but for myself. I wear everything I design, everyday, it’s that or very little at all!” After swimming in a one piece, Innes will add a pair of pants for a lunch out, then throw on a sheer dress over the top for dinner. The perfect swimsuit, says Innes, “is comfortable elegant and strong”, and it’s her respect for these qualities that make her swimwear so timeless.

Innes equates timelessness with classic shapes, a less is more aesthetic and an honest approach, which she applies not only to her product offering, but her business, too. Production is based in a small manufacturing house in Brisbane, where Innes’s team follow a small-batch model that’s based on demand, avoids excess waste, and allows for a slower, more considered design process from start to finish. As for her studio, this year saw Innes work from her home in Byron Bay and all over the world, “hotel rooms, Airbnbs, cafes, by a lake, by the ocean…” and in doing so, Innes has discovered the direction she wants to take her next collection. Looking to the year ahead, Innes expresses a desire to create a resort collection — she’s been working on some designs that complement her swimwear — but she’s learning not to rush the process or need to have it all mapped out. “Running a business, my one non-negotiable is my commitment to be as honest and true to myself as I can be.  I have been working on this more and more. My values of connection to self, others and the environment are integral to me.”