Shoshanna

Shoshanna is a New York women's fashion label founded by Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, whose first collection reached stores in November 1998. It is known for dresses and evening wear, and in the intimates world for one specific idea: in spring 2001 it began selling swimsuit tops and bottoms as separates, with tops sized by cup in the manner of a bra. That approach, designed for women whose bust and hips are not the same "size," is still the backbone of the label's swim line today.

A dress label that started in a lingerie factory

Lonstein Gruss was born in Manhattan in 1975 and earned degrees in history and art history at UCLA. According to the brand's own biography, she then worked at a New York lingerie factory before launching her own collection. The first Shoshanna line was a dress collection built around her personal fashion needs, and the label's stated aim was as "women's fashions for different body types." Her father, Zach Lonstein, chief executive of the data services company Infocrossing, lent her the money to start.

That year on a lingerie factory floor matters to the story. Lingerie makers have always sized by two measurements, band and cup, while ready-to-wear sizes a woman by a single number. A designer who has watched bras being graded knows how badly a single number serves a full-busted woman in a fitted dress or a bikini. The label's early positioning drew on exactly that gap, and a 1999 newspaper headline on the brand's rise, "Bloomingdale's or Bust!," made the pun explicit.

The 2001 swim separates and bra-style sizing

The swim line arrived in spring 2001. The brand describes it as the first to sell "swimsuit tops and bottoms as separates with lingerie-inspired sizing," and calls the move revolutionary for inclusive fit. That claim of being first is the company's own, and this entry has not found an independent source to test it against, but the idea itself is easy to judge on its merits.

The principle is simple. A woman who wears a small bottom and a D-cup bra had two bad choices with a matched bikini: a top that gapes or a bottom that sags. Selling the pieces apart and sizing the top by cup removed the compromise. It also made swimwear shopping look more like a bra fitting, which is what it should have been all along.

The current catalog still follows the system. Tops are offered in cup sizes that run A, A/B, B, B/C, C, C/D, D, D/DD, DD and DDD, while bottoms come in numeric dress sizes from 0 to 12. Shapes include ring-front triangle tops, a Multi Bra halter top, ruffled one-pieces and lace-up maillots, with separates mostly priced between about $108 and $190 and one-pieces up to about $295. Prints run from solid brights to florals, nautical stripes and textured fabrics. Because each bikini bottom is bought apart from its top, a customer can mix a covered brief with a skimpier top or the reverse.

Timeline

Year	Event
1998	First Shoshanna collection in stores, November
2001	Swim separates with cup-sized tops launch for spring
2005	Shoshanna Baby Girl, a children's swim line
2013	Lonstein Gruss named Elizabeth Arden's first Style Director
2019	C'est Nous, an extended-size line with the rental service Gwynnie Bee

Wholesale reach and the department store years

Shoshanna grew up in the department store system. The brand lists Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale's among its stockists, along with Shopbop and Anthropologie and more than 500 specialty boutiques in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. For a swim label that relies on cup sizing, that wholesale reach was a real achievement: separates need more shelf space than matched suits, because every top and bottom has to be stocked in its own size run.

The founder has remained creative director throughout. In 2013 Elizabeth Arden appointed her as its first Style Director, a spokeswoman and adviser role that sat alongside her own label rather than replacing it. In 2019 the C'est Nous line with Gwynnie Bee pushed the brand into extended sizes.

Shoshanna in 2025

The label marked 27 years in business in 2025. Its own site now leads with day dresses, cocktail and evening dresses, knits and tops, and swim is one section among several, offered in separates, one-pieces and cover-ups. The brand describes its identity as "bold colors, unique details, and a commitment to celebrating women's individual style." For a lingerie encyclopedia, though, its lasting contribution is narrower and more practical: a New York dress label, started by a designer who had worked in a lingerie factory, that taught American department stores to sell a bikini top the way they sell a bra.

Last updated October 7, 2026