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DESIGN DREAMS
I’m a Latina mom – everyone told me to stay home with my kids, but I launched my own bikini line which I model myself
A FIRST-GENERATION Latin American woman has revealed how she overcame societal pressures to become an inclusive swimwear designer.
Many in her life told her that as a mom, she should stay at home but New York-based designer Melinda Huff took charge of her life and launched Mirame Swim into the pages of Vogue Magazine.
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founder Melinda Huff is a 42-year-old born and raised New Yorker.
Melinda grew up surrounded by design and creativity as her family strived for the idealized American Dream.
Her Honduran mother and German father immigrated to New York City. They both had single mothers who had exceptional sewing skills, which landed them both jobs in the Garment District as seamstresses.
At 30 years old and heavily pregnant with her first child, she debuted her initial Mirame Swim collection "Natives" at New York Fashion Week in 2011.
Mirame means "look at me" in Spanish, which pays homage to her Hispanic roots and shines a light on the importance of age and size-inclusive swim pieces.
Being a successful Latina entrepreneur didn't happen overnight and initially, Melinda navigated cultural, societal, and generational pressures that diverted her attention from her dreams.
"The gender roles are very set. Women are home with the kids, and then are they married," Melinda said to the U.S. Sun.
"What has held me back would be my own internalized ideas of what a Latina is," she added.
She was told from a young age to choose a sensible career that allowed her to be more present at home, but she always had an eye for design that was fostered by her grandmother.
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"It was about eighth grade. We had our first little dance and I was so excited, but I couldn't find a dress I like because I had a different style," she explained.
Her grandma stumbled across a sketch of a style and asked Melinda if she wanted her to make it.
"A week later, she knocked on my door. I went to look and she held it up. As soon as I saw that dress, it was like I just knew this is what I'm doing with my life," she divulged.
Melinda took an unpredictable path that eventually led her to become the successful businesswoman that she is today.
Originally, she did not go to fashion school and moved out west to go to a Buddhist college, where she studied Eastern Philosophy and Psychology.
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Realizing she needed to fulfill her passion, she dropped out and moved back to New York to live with her parents.
Melinda didn't have full design training but landed an unpaid sales internship for couture-level wedding gowns.
After three tries to get into the Fashion Institute of Technology, she started taking classes at night.
All throughout college, she took sewing courses.
This helped her land her next unpaid internship as a sample maker at a start-up brand in Brooklyn, where she made their first two collections.
Serendipitously, she was approached about her next internship at a knitwear company while commuting home on the train.
"I don't know what I'm doing but you fake it till you make it, and I ended up staying there for two years," Melinda shared.
Norma Kamali is her "ultimate favorite designer," so she applied for an internship at the company on a whim and got her first paying job in the industry.
"I ended up getting the internship, and then I ended up getting moved up to the production manager, and sample room manager," she said.
She oversaw the development of bathing suits for the music videos of big names in the industry like Beyonce and Rihanna, which was a "powerful experience" for her.
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"When I left that job, I said, 'Well, where can I go from here except to myself, right?' So that's when I left and Mirame was launched," Melinda explained.
Because she already knew techniques and manufacturers, she leveraged her connections and focused 80 percent of her first collection exclusively on one-piece swimsuits.
"After talking to so many women, I started to understand what are some of the pain points. And then how can I be supportive and make women feel good?" she said.
Now, as a mother of three girls who are 12, seven, and four years old, it's important for her to promote body positivity and size inclusivity with her company.
About 80 percent of Mirame's customers are in their 40s and 50s, with many falling between sizes 8 to 14.
The standard sizing starts at small and goes to XL, but there are a few collaboration pieces that go up to 2X and 3X.
"I really like to play with proportion, moving the eye around with silhouettes so that we don't feel as a woman like we've got a spotlight," she explained.
When it comes to modeling her swimsuits, Melinda knows that her petite body is not the norm at her height of 5-foot-4 and 110 pounds "on a good day."
"I dabble myself in there, but I really toned it down over the years, as I've gotten older and kind of moved to a different phase of life," she said.
"Then we do some custom work for people who are above XL that might want a funky piece that's ours that we can tweak a little for their body shape."
When it comes to her favorite item, she said to look no further than the , $170, which doubles as a bodysuit.
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"I'm telling you any size, any age, there's something magical about the silhouette that just makes women feel really good when they put it on," she said.
If Melinda could describe her brand as a whole, she said it would be "beach to brunch" because of its multi-purpose use.
One of her biggest childhood dreams came true in March 2022 when she was featured in Vogue Magazine.
"I don't even think I ever said it out loud because it just felt like too big in my heart of hearts," she admitted.
According to Melinda, the article was about photoshopping and photo retouching in the fashion industry with a female-driven production team.
From the creative director to the model, photographer, and makeup artists, it was a collaborative effort.
"It was also so meaningful. The fact that it was produced by women and just talking about women and our struggles," she explained.
She manufactures about 80 percent of the swimwear in the South Bronx by utilizing the skillset of local Latina women - she also collaborates with local female artists.
"As women, we work so well together and we uplift each other," she added.
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Mirame has no plans to slow down production anytime soon and instead wants to utilize community resources.
"I'm so proud that we're still standing and that we've grown strategically and modestly, but done it in a way that's just so true to our mission," she said happily.
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