Solkissed

A mother and daughter founded Solkissed in New York in 2012, and the Peruvian swimwear label still has its suits sewn in Lima, Peru, by women who run their own small workshops. It sells bikinis, one-pieces and beach cover-ups online, ships worldwide from California, and runs a separate Peruvian storefront for customers at home. Its signature is the reversible bikini: one piece of swimwear, two prints.

A Peruvian brand born in Manhattan

The company tells its origin briefly. Solkissed describes itself as "a Peruvian brand originally founded in New York in 2012 by a mother-daughter duo." The New York start explains the English name and the American price points. The Peruvian identity explains everything else, from the prints, which the brand says draw on Latin American culture, to where the garments are made.

That split has stayed in place. Orders for most of the world now leave from California, while Peruvian shoppers are directed to a local site, solkissed.com.pe. The founders' names are not given on the brand's own pages, and they are left out here for that reason.

Made by micro-entrepreneurs in Lima

The production model is the most distinctive thing about the business. Rather than placing orders with one large swim factory, Solkissed says each piece is "made by women micro-entrepreneur in Lima, Peru." In practice that means small independent workrooms, each run by a seamstress who owns her own business, sewing to the brand's patterns. The company presents this as slow fashion and as a way of keeping income with the women doing the work.

Swimwear suits that kind of setup. It needs careful handling of stretch fabric and elastic, but little heavy machinery, so a skilled seamstress with a few industrial machines can turn out finished suits in small batches. The approach has a cost: limited runs, and colorways that sell out without a restock.

Reversible tops and two-faced prints

How the Solkissed reversible bikini works

A reversible bikini is built from two complete layers of swim fabric, each printed or dyed differently, sewn face to face so that either side can be worn out. There is no separate lining, because each layer lines the other. Done well, the seams sit inside and the elastic is enclosed, so neither face shows construction. Done badly, the piece twists and the inner print shows through at the edges.

Solkissed applies this to tops and bottoms alike. The Alexis top, priced at $89 when checked, came in pairings such as "Choco chip" reversing to "Chocoflor", and a white polka dot reversing to a black mini polka dot. A matching bikini bottom can be flipped independently, so one set yields four combinations. For a traveler packing light, that arithmetic is the selling point.

One-pieces, sarongs and skirts

The rest of the range is compact. One-piece swimsuits were listed at $159, separate bikini tops and bottoms at roughly $85 to $95 each, and cover-ups included the Daybreak sarong at $55 to $65 and short beach skirts. The brand does not publish fiber content prominently on its collection pages, so the exact fabric blend is not stated here.

Where Solkissed fits in swimwear

At those prices Solkissed sits above the fast-fashion swim sold by mass e-tailers and below the designer resort labels that charge several hundred dollars for a one-piece. Its closest comparisons are other small-batch labels that sell abroad on craft and print rather than on celebrity, a group well represented among the swimwear and lingerie brands in this encyclopedia.

What the brand does not do is lingerie in the strict sense. There are no bras built for daily wear, no corsetry and no nightwear. A buyer looking for an everyday wireless bra will not find one here. Its link to the intimates world is the swimsuit itself, a garment that borrows bra construction for the beach.

Fourteen years after its New York start, the label still runs on the same idea it began with: two prints per piece, sewn by hand in Lima, sold to customers who may never visit Peru but can wear a little of it on a beach anywhere.

Last updated October 7, 2026