Vitamin A is Swimwear Made Sustainably Sexy
For almost two decades Vitamin A has been elevating the swimwear industry. Founded by Laguna Beach local Amahlia Stevens as a way to showcase her beach-ready creations, she is now largely regarded as a leading innovator in the sustainable swimwear game.
Indeed, Vitamin A suits are simple, clean, sophisticated, and sexy -- your classic California beach girl style at its finest.
Stevens grew up swimming, hiking, and snowboarding throughout Southern California’s hills and beaches. It was this love for nature combined with her innate talent for design that shaped her vision for Vitamin A, which she modeled after her own active lifestyle. All Vitamin A suits are sustainably and locally made, Stevens explains with a smile, “to keep both you and the earth looking sexy.”
With their “Sustainability is Sexy” mantra, the Vitamin A team is actively changing the way the swim industry operates through delivering a high quality, sustainable product, California production practices, and their support of nonprofits that aim to protect and preserve our ocean ecosystems, including Girls, Inc., Surfrider Foundation, Oceana, and Plastic Ocean.
Starting out in the saturated industry of swimwear, Stevens admits it wasn’t all sunshine and sandy beaches however. When she first began researching eco-friendly options, fabric suppliers told her there was zero market for swimwear made from recycled fibers. With no other choice, the budding designer took matters into her own hands and designed a prototype herself, working three years with top mills in Italy, Canada, and California before finding the perfect process, EcoLux, the first original swim fabric made from recycled nylon.
Today, the Vitamin A collection has a variety of propriety textiles made from recycled, organic, and innovative fibers (including castor beans)!
“When I had kids, I felt all the more focused on preserving our beautiful planet. It’s my responsibility to do whatever I can as an individual,” explains Stevens. “The fact that I have this ability to influence the industry and possibly open people’s minds is important to me. We must be caretakers for this gift that we have.”
Through Vitamin A, Stevens is using her voice to raise awareness about empowering women and respecting and protecting the earth. In one of their more recent campaigns, the Body Sculpt Muse did an open casting call to women of all shapes, sizes, and colors to star in their collection. The results? Beautiful, confident, and real woman sharing their unique stories, all in Vitamin A.
The creator and changemaker understands a woman’s body and knows that the right fit is the most important element in design. It’s Vitamin A’s mission to give confidence to women. “Believe in yourself at all cost,” Stevens states. “Really believe in yourself and what you are doing.”
And then get to the beach...
Mari Verdugo is a fourth generation Laguna Beach native, a photographer, writer and only wears Vitamin A swimsuits. Find Mari at @marielenaphoto or on her website.
Unconditional Rescue is a Laguna Beach-based rescue who is dedicated to getting senior and special needs dogs adopted, reframing them from “sad and unfortunate” to “happy and forever.”