Beach Bunny

Beach Bunny Swimwear is a California swimwear label founded in 2003 by Angela Chittenden in Newport Beach, Orange County. It makes bikinis, one-pieces, cover-ups and resort clothing with a deliberately lingerie-like look: lace overlays, chain and ring hardware, crystals and very small cuts. The piece that made its name is the Lady Lace bikini, and lace has stayed at the center of the line ever since.

Newport Beach, not Los Angeles

The brand is often filed as a Los Angeles label, and some listings give 2005 as its starting year. Beach Bunny's own account is more specific. It says Chittenden founded the company in Newport Beach in 2003, and its flagship store is still there, at the Fashion Island shopping center on Newport Center Drive. Orange County matters to the brand's identity. Its customers are as likely to be at a hotel pool or a yacht club as on a surf beach, and the collections are styled accordingly.

Little else about the company's ownership or finances is public. It is privately held, it does not publish sales, and there is no independent biography of the founder in reference sources. What can be documented is the product, the stores and the way the brand presents itself.

The Lady Lace bikini

Beach Bunny credits its rise to the Lady Lace bikini, which it says "set the tone for the brand's bold and glamorous style." The lace styles that followed show the idea: treat a swimsuit like a lingerie set, with lace laid over a swim base, so the suit reads as underwear from a distance and still works in the water.

The lace idea carries on in the current best-seller list, which the brand calls The Icons. The Gunpowder and Lace set pairs a lace triangle bra top with a skimpy bottom held by gold rings, at about $130 per piece. The Hard Summer styles come in white, black, red and gold, with tie-side, tango and skimpy bottoms. The Addie set matches a triangle top with a micro thong. Other pieces use chain straps, metal trims and crystal embellishment, and one current style is plainly named Got Me In Chains.

A lingerie vocabulary in swim

Read as construction, much of Beach Bunny is lingerie translated. Underwire tops follow bra patterns. Thong and tango bottoms borrow panty cuts. Lace, mesh and hardware details come straight from boudoir sets. That is why the label shows up in a lingerie catalog at all, and why its pieces are classified here using the same bra and panty types as intimates. Brands such as For Love and Lemons work the same seam from the other direction, carrying lingerie details into swim and ready-to-wear.

Beach Bunny sizes, prices and collections

Beach Bunny prices sit in the upper-middle of the swim market. Separate tops and bottoms in The Icons ran from about $78 to $130 each in 2026, and a lace mini dress about $120. Sizes go from XS to 2XL. Tops and bottoms are sold separately, so a set can be split across sizes.

The range is organized into themed drops with names such as Salt Kissed Summer, Italian Summer Edition and Denim Daydreams, plus standing categories: Bunny Basics, Embellished, Neutrals, Prints and a bridal line, Bridal Bunny, aimed at honeymoons and bachelorette trips. Knitwear, loungewear and dresses have been added around the swim, turning the label into a resort wardrobe.

Three stores, two continents

Beach Bunny sells mostly online and through wholesale accounts, and it runs three shops of its own. Besides Fashion Island in Newport Beach, there is a newer store at Scottsdale Fashion Square in Arizona and one at Nakheel Mall on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. The Dubai location says a good deal about the brand's market. Glamour swim of this kind sells well in resort cities with a pool-and-beach-club culture, from Orange County to the Gulf.

Two decades in, the brand is still built on the formula of its first hit. A lace-covered bikini that looks like lingerie remains the product Beach Bunny puts at the front of the store.

Last updated October 7, 2026