Liane FitzGerald ‘12, is entering her eleventh year with her business, Roy Swim, a line of handmade customizable swimwear designed to be comfortable, personalizable, and functional.
For FitzGerald, it all began between the ages of 16-26 when she was working seasonally as a lifeguard at Lucy Vincent Beach on Martha’s Vineyard, where she grew up and now lives in the summers.
“I spent so much time in bathing suits and never felt satisfied with the fit and comfort level…wearing it for 10 hours a day gets pretty uncomfortable”.
In spending a couple months in Costa Rica post-graduation FitzGerald was inspired by an artist in Playa Negra who hand-made swimwear, allowing customers to choose their own fabrics and styles. From this point, she started “dreaming up” the possibilities of making her own line of swimwear that focused on customizability and comfort which she would eventually sell on Martha’s Vineyard
Upon returning home, she began crafting bathing suits primarily through trial and error, and started selling them at the Chilmark Flea, where she had in previous years sold screen printed t-shirts.
In these early years of Roy Swim her role in the business was everything––social media manager, designer, pattern drafter, seamstress, salesperson, website manager, and more. While she has since acquired the help of a woman to do the first half of production and summer interns to assist with sales, she remains deeply involved in every aspect of the business, continuing to hold all of these roles, and ensuring she touches every suit she sells.
During FitzGerald’s time at Bates she was an art and visual culture major, pursuing her creative interests on a more serious level than she had before and anticipated she ever would.
“Being able to take all these art classes and think about my future while doing all these creative things was definitely pretty powerful for me and not sure I would have granted myself that pleasure of doing creative things to make a living if I hadn’t been able to take art seriously” she reflected.
FitzGerald credits much of her success to the opportunity she had to to study art seriously and pushes she received from art professors, notably Professor Fientuch, to buckle down and put in the work to make it as an artist.
In offering a piece of advice for students interested in pursuing art, fashion design, entrepreneurship, or related fields, she said “start small but you have to start is the key”.
She claims that the best piece of advice she received was to start before feeling completely ready as “you are never going to feel completely ready to put yourself and your stuff out there but you must start somewhere. The first thing you put out doesn’t need to be the most perfect and polished product as you learn the most from doing and people’s reaction to what you do.”
FitzGerald also advises selling in person, emphasizing the importance of interacting with customers to see how they feel about your product in real life. She attributes much of her fuel to these face to face interactions.
“It pushes me forward when I meet somebody or see somebody for the fifth year in a row buying a bathing suit and they are excited about it and tell me all the reasons that they love what I do which is super valuable for me” she said.
From initially having six suits on her rack at the Chilmark Flea to the over 80 that hang there now and over 6000 suits she has designed, cut, and sewn, Liane FitzGerald has made tremendous strides with her business Roy Swim and creative endeavors post-Bates.
