Solid & Striped

Solid & Striped is a New York swimwear brand founded in 2012 by Isaac Ross. It launched in November 2012 with a single idea, a well-made pair of men's swim trunks in plain colors and classic stripes, and added women's swimwear in 2014, which now accounts for the large majority of its sales.

Fourth of July in Water Mill

The founding story is short and specific. Over the Fourth of July weekend in 2012, Ross was at a friend's house in Water Mill, in the Hamptons. Most of the men by the pool wore the bright printed trunks of an expensive French resort label. His friend's father wore an old pair of navy and white striped trunks he had bought at Club 55 in Saint-Tropez. Ross liked them better than anything on sale in New York and decided to make his own.

He was in his mid-twenties. In a 2015 profile Fashionista described his aim as an understated alternative to the trendy and often unflattering swimwear that dominated the market.

Solid, or striped

The name is the product brief, and it let a buyer understand the whole collection in two words. The first trunks came in solid colors or in stripes, cut close, with tailored details and modern color accents. Cool Hunting, covering the November 2012 launch, reported that the fabrics were quick-drying cloths woven in France, Spain and Italy, and that the men's trunks sold for about $130 to $160. Later descriptions mention European and Japanese technical fabrics.

Hotels and specialty stores

The brand grew through places rather than advertising. Early stockists included the New York boutique Fivestory, and the label took commissions from hotels including the Four Seasons and the Beverly Hills Hotel, a natural fit for a product people often buy on holiday. WWD later traced the brand's breakthrough to a single suitcase of swim briefs, eight solid and four striped, and reported that it had grown to about 400 stockists.

In 2013 Ross sold a minority stake to the investor Chris Burch, co-founder of Tory Burch and an active backer of fashion startups.

Women's swimwear, 2014

The pivot that defined the company came in 2014, when Solid & Striped introduced women's swimwear developed with the designer Morgan Curtis. The approach matched the men's line: simple silhouettes, few embellishments, good fabric. At launch, women's tops and bottoms sold for about $70 to $80 each and one-pieces for about $140 to $150.

The women's line took over the business. Within a few years women's sales were reported at more than 90 percent of revenue. The striped one-piece and a classic bikini bottom in solid colors became the brand's recognizable shapes, worn widely on social media by models and actresses in the mid-2010s.

The Instagram swimsuit

Fashionista's 2015 headline called it "Instagram's favorite swimwear line", and the description fit. Plain, graphic suits photograph well, and a striped one-piece is recognizable without a logo. That visibility helped a small New York company compete with older European swim houses such as Eres and with the Australian labels that dominated resortwear, including Zimmermann.

Beyond the pool

The company then widened into beachwear and ready-to-wear sold alongside the suits. A store in Miami followed, and the brand is stocked by international retailers including SSENSE. Men's trunks remain in the range, though they are now the smaller side of the business.

The brand's appeal rests on restraint. Solid & Striped sells a version of American and Riviera beach style from the 1960s and 1970s, the kind of suit that could have been worn at Club 55 half a century ago. It began with one man copying another man's trunks, and the original stripe is still in the collection.

Last updated October 28, 2026