Inamorata Woman

Inamorata Woman, sold as Inamorata, is the swimwear and bodywear label launched in November 2017 by the model and actress Emily Ratajkowski, with the fashion industry veteran Kat Mendenhall as co-founder. Wikipedia gives its headquarters as Irvine, California. It began as a small swim line and now sells bikinis, one-pieces and a "Body" collection of close-fitting tops, bottoms and dresses through its own site, inamoratawoman.com.

Six pieces and a trademark

The launch was quick and tightly controlled. In August 2017, Emrata Holdings LLC, Ratajkowski's company, acquired the Inamorata trademark. Over the autumn she posted hints on social media, and on November 9 Harper's Bazaar UK reported that a swimwear brand was coming. The site, then at inamorataswim.com, went live on November 16, 2017.

The first collection was small by any standard: three bikini separates and three one-piece suits, priced between 75 and 160 dollars. That is a familiar model for a founder with a large social following. A narrow first drop limits inventory risk, sells out fast, and gives the brand a story about demand before it has to prove it can run a full range.

The name comes from Italian. Wikipedia glosses the word as meaning "in love"; in Italian an inamorata is a woman in love, or a beloved.

The cease-and-desist

The launch was not entirely smooth. Within days, in November 2017, the swimwear designer Lisa Marie Fernandez sent a cease-and-desist letter claiming that Inamorata pieces resembled her own designs. According to Wikipedia's account, her lawyers cited European Union Community Design registrations dating from 2015. Swimwear is a hard field in which to protect a design, since the basic shapes, from the triangle top to the high-cut one-piece, belong to nobody. Registered designs are one of the few tools available, and the dispute showed how quickly a celebrity launch draws scrutiny from established designers. The museum found no public record of how the matter ended.

Encinitas origins

The brand's own story starts not in Irvine but in Encinitas, a beach town in north San Diego County where both founders grew up. Ratajkowski was born in London to American parents and raised there, and attended high school in the town while starting her modeling career. The brand describes its clothes as "easy, body-conscious essentials" and frames them as a beach-town attitude carried into city life.

Body image is the theme it returns to most. Inamorata's about page says the label "rejects tired old myths about body image" and "embraces the full spectrum of the female form," and ties that to the variety of bodies the founders saw on the beaches where they grew up. The line most quoted from it is short: "it's about the confidence, it's about self-love."

From swim line to bodywear

Recognition followed within two years. In 2019, Daily Front Row named Inamorata and Ratajkowski its Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year, and Forbes put Ratajkowski on its 30 Under 30 list for Art and Style.

The range has widened since the six-piece debut. The current site is divided into Swim, with bikinis, separate tops and bottoms, one-pieces and beachwear, and Body, with tops, bottoms, dresses and accessories. Collections run under names such as City Kini, Satin, Butterfly, Leopard and Animal Prints, and the brand has released a collaboration with the label Mirror Palais. The Body line is where Inamorata comes closest to lingerie: second-skin satin and stretch pieces that sit between underwear, loungewear and going-out clothes.

A note on the name in the archive

The museum's records file the label as Inamorata Woman, after its current web address, and hold 38 products under that name. They are the same company. The domain change from inamorataswim.com to inamoratawoman.com tracks the brand's move beyond swimsuits.

Before Inamorata

Ratajkowski's link with swimwear predates her own label. In August 2016 she became the spokesperson for the Australian swim brand Amore + Sorvete. Fifteen months later she owned a swim brand outright. That sequence, from paid face of someone else's line to founder of one's own, became a common path for models in the late 2010s, and Inamorata is one of the clearer examples of it.

Last updated October 7, 2026