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Swim Is In at California-Lifestyle Brand Bella Dahl With New Launch

Photos courtesy of Bella Dahl

Known for its cool Southern California style, Los Angeles women’s brand Bella Dahl took a plunge further into the Golden State culture as it launched its first swim collection. The label ventured into the swim category in December with a line of pieces for women and girls with styles that speak to the Bella Dahl Southern California aesthetic. For its first line, Bella Dahl created swimwear in addition to complementary cover-ups designed to ensure comfort and style.

“The Bella Dahl aesthetic and staying true to that [was our inspiration]. This is our first round, and we wanted to make sure it felt like Bella Dahl,” explained Chelsea Titzer, head designer at Bella Dahl. “All the fabric that we chose has that extremely soft hand feel. It’s not typical that you find something so soft in swimwear and so comfortable to wear, and we really wanted to bring that same feeling that you get in Bella Dahl clothing to the beach and to the pool.”

The swim collection was made in Los Angeles, which is a common practice for most Bella Dahl pieces. “With Bella Dahl, we keep the majority of our production local. It’s very important to us to support the community and keep people working here in L.A. instead of sending everything overseas,” Titzer said. “We have incredible contractors, artists, garment-dye-and-wash houses. Keeping production here in L.A. is so important to keep this industry alive. There are countless clothing brands located here in Los Angeles. A lot of them import their goods. If we can keep our industry here, that is the most important message to send out, and that is what we’re trying to do.”

Designed in nylon and spandex, the Bella Dahl swim collection was a project to which the company’s design team dedicated a great deal of research and development. The company wanted to set apart this collection from other swim brands by applying processes that would allow the pieces to stand out among other goods in the category.

“It almost feels really silky. It’s different than most swim that you see. We just had to work with our garment dyer to figure out how to get these fabrics to take the dye and do these beautiful tie-dye looks we have,” Titzer said. “We wanted to have the opportunity to have those great dye processes in swimwear, which is not something that is common and is very difficult. It’s been a huge learning experience.”

Building on its first swim and cover-up offerings, Bella Dahl will launch a resort-and-cabana collection this month. Working from its foundation in the inaugural swim collection, the brand is developing this next collection with the same attention to detail and comfort in fabric composition and style as it did for these first pieces.

“These pieces are an extension of what we’ve done before in lounge, but [they are] more pool and beach ready,” Titzer said regarding the full collection that Bella Dahl is preparing to launch. “We are a California lifestyle brand. These cover-up pieces were just an extension of that in easy, lightweight fabrications, soft to the touch, all natural fibers. We have a new crinkle-textured gauze-linen blend that is very soft, and it sold out before we even launched it.”

Priced at retail for under $200 for one-piece designs and $100 for separates, the Bella Dahl swim collection is sized XS–L with some cover-ups available in XL at belladahl.com. The next Bella Dahl swim collection is planned for release in May.