Difference between designing swimwear and lingerie

Whether you have a dream to become a lingerie designer or swimwear designer, you’ll be pleased to know that when you learn one, it’s easier transferable to the other. Both are classed as contour garments.

My first job was a lingerie/swimwear designer for the high streets, and I used the same principals of grading, the same fitting techniques and same specs. I even used the same patterns, as there are a lot of lingerie shapes that would work for swimwear.

The main difference is obviously the fabrics. That said I once designed a Liberty Tana lawn cotton bikini for Topshop.

If you are wanting to design lingerie and swimwear, I would do the following to the patterns if you are wanting to switch between them:

1. Make the pattern smaller - Although you can technically use the same pattern, because swimwear fabric tends to be more stretchy and have great recovery, I would reduce the pattern by approx 5-8% (so if you brief measured say 10cm on the rise I would make it 9.5cm - it seems such a little amount that you may be able to get away with out making it smaller - but be careful on the outer sizes as it may be distorted.

2. I would also add onto the elastic allowance, generally it’s 6mm on lingerie but I would add another 2-3mm , to allow for overlocking the rubber on and turning. Again it seems such a small amount, but that 2-3mm amount will make a total difference around the gusset - ie if you don’t add it the gusset will be too narrow and as lot more people see your swimwear than your undies you don’t want to be showing people a lot more if you get my meaning !!

Lingerie shapes that would totally work for swimwear

Another thing you need to bear in mind are your findings.

I’ve always found it okay to use metal rings and sliders on swimwear, although some companies claim that they become to hot in the sun and use plastic ones, I’ve always found plastic ones break too easily.

Next thing would be instead of gusset lining is swimwear lining, it’s often black white or beige but can come in colours, its quite acceptable to use black and white and not have them colour match.

Remember if you are using white or light fabrics for your swimwear, fully line the front of your brief and maybe the bikini top.

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