Saude Istanbul

Saude Istanbul (written Saúde on its own site) is a Turkish women's swimwear and resort-wear label founded in Istanbul in 2019 by designer Gizem Kiracı. It sells bikinis, one-piece swimsuits, pareos, activewear including sports bras and leggings, and a ready-to-wear line of dresses, shirts and trousers, through its own online store and a small number of physical shops. Its stated selling point is recycled, certified fabric.

For a lingerie archive, the interest is in the swimwear, which shares its construction with the bra and the brief, and in the way a young Turkish label has positioned itself against the fast-fashion swimwear that floods the same market.

A Portuguese name for a Turkish brand

The name is the first odd detail. Saúde is Portuguese for "health," the word Brazilians and Portuguese use as a toast. Choosing it for a brand based in Istanbul points straight at Brazil, the country whose beach culture shaped the modern bikini more than any other, and whose cuts, the Brazilian back among them, are now standard across the swim trade.

The founder's own account of the brand is about a type of customer rather than a type of garment. On the company's about page, Kiracı says she designs "for feminine but simple women," and talks about confidence "without sacrificing comfort" and about "understated luxury." That last phrase is a fair description of the look: plain solid colors, minimal hardware, and shapes that rely on cut rather than print.

Training in Istanbul and New York

According to the brand, Kiracı studied at Istanbul Technical University and at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. The pairing is common among Turkish designers of her generation. Istanbul supplies the manufacturing base, one of the largest textile and apparel industries in Europe and the Middle East, while a New York school supplies the merchandising training and a Western customer in mind.

That background shows in the commercial setup. The Saude website runs in Turkish and quotes prices in Turkish lira, US dollars and euros, which tells a buyer the label wants foreign customers from the start.

Saude Istanbul swimwear and the recycled-fabric pitch

The company files its environmental program under a hashtag, #saudegreenteam, and says it applies sustainability "from production to packaging." The concrete claim is that it uses certified recycled fabrics. In swimwear that almost always means recycled nylon or polyester blended with elastane, the same family of knits that has replaced virgin nylon in much of the higher-priced swim market over the past decade. The brand does not publish its mill names or certification bodies on the pages reviewed for this entry, so the claim is reported here as the company makes it.

The brand also presents its pieces as "investment pieces," the opposite of the cheap, disposable swimsuit sold by the high-street chains. In practice that means fewer styles per season and a range built around solid separates that can be combined.

The range

The swim offer covers bikinis and one-pieces, with pareos and cover-ups for the beach. The activewear line adds sports bras, leggings and jumpsuits, and the ready-to-wear side runs to dresses, shirts, skirts and trousers, with shoes and sunglasses as accessories. It is a resort wardrobe more than a swim specialist's catalog, built for a customer who wants to buy the swimsuit and what goes over it from one place.

The bikini bottoms fall into the families that lingerie readers will recognize. The swim bikini bottom is cut like its underwear counterpart but made from a heavier, chlorine-resistant knit with a full lining, and the higher-cut styles borrow directly from Brazilian swim.

The label in brief

• Founded: 2019, Istanbul, Turkey
• Founder: Gizem Kiracı
• Products: swimwear, beachwear, activewear, ready-to-wear, accessories
• Materials: certified recycled fabrics, according to the brand
• Sales: own online store in three currencies, plus physical stores

Saude Istanbul is a young label, and its record so far is short. What it shows is how quickly the Turkish apparel industry has produced design-led swim brands that sell straight to foreign customers, with a Portuguese toast for a name.

Last updated October 7, 2026