What happens when you mix in a little Latina with a splash of dakine and put the resulting swimsuit on a gorgeous model? That itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini could end up on the cover of the 2016 Sports Illustrated
What happens when you mix in a little Latina with a splash of dakine and put the resulting swimsuit on a gorgeous model?
That itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini could end up on the cover of the 2016 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
“I just feel like I won ‘Project Runway,’” said Lennie Collins, a Kauai swimsuit designer whose bikini was featured on one of the edition’s three covers.
Her multi-colored bikini design was worn by model Hailey Clauson, who is shown sitting on the beach topless, covering her breasts.
Collins knew her bikini was going to make the issue. She just had no idea it was chosen to be on a cover, out of more than 800 swimsuits sent to the magazine by designers, she said.
“We found out Saturday night when we were watching the special,” she said, referring to the “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016 Revealed” special. “My daughter jumps up and says, ‘Mom … Mom, I think that’s yours!’ And I’m like, ‘Shut up, no it’s not, stop it.’ I had to get close to the TV and went ‘Ahh!’ And didn’t know what to do and I kind of just froze and I was just like frozen for two days because I just did not know what to do.”
Although Collins couldn’t discuss specifics about the selection process, she said the SI team sent designers guidelines on what they wanted for this year’s bikini models.
Colors and ideas — such as “try to make them really tiny” — influenced her designs, she said.
She still laughs because Clauson’s bikini was so risqué. “It’s so little,” she said. “’Really, Lennie, your bathing suit is there? Well, where the hell is it?’”
Collins, a 40-year swimsuit designing veteran, said she feels lucky and honored that SI likes her bathing suits, because she’s always tried to stay true to herself and her heritage.
Collins has lived on Kauai since she was 17. She moved here from San Diego, but her grandmother was originally from the Mexican state Sonora.
She got her first sewing machine when she was 8. She taught herself to crochet and sew at an early age.
When she couldn’t find a bathing suit she liked that fit her, her mother said, “Why don’t you just make it yourself? You know how to sew.”
She began by going to fabric stores and thrift shops and picking out old mumus covered in aloha wear print, and used that for her early designs.
She then found red and gold fabrics that she liked. Later, she upgraded to embellishing her swimsuits.
Forty years later, her designs are on the cover of a world-recognized swimsuit edition of a sports magazine.
She attributes that to embracing both her own culture and that of Kauai.
“When you embrace another culture you really learn about your own,” she said.
That’s why her brand, La Vida Aloha, is unique, she said.
“I don’t follow any other designers,” Collins said. “If I do, I lose my vision. I got to stay true to what I do the best. What feels good to myself.”
That means all hand-designed swimwear inspired by “colors, the Frida Kahlo movement, Oaxaca, Mexico, and textiles.”
“I’m very into the Mexican culture,” Collins said. “Nothing goes past my eyes. Nature, landscapes and beautiful sunsets.”
The designing process is the hardest part.
“It’s an organic process,” Collins said. “You revise it. You take a cut here and take a cut there.”
She’s always changing it up and bringing in new styles, she said.
Although Collins’ designs have been on the pages of Sports Illustrated before, they have never graced the cover.
Her brand, La Vida Aloha, is sold online at bikinjane.com. Her brick-and-mortar store opens the first week of March in Kalaheo on Papalina Street.
“I’m a Mexican that lives in Hawaii,” she said. “That’s La Vida Aloha.”
