(Filed Under Wholesale Swimwear News). AM:PM has doubled the amount swimwear in its collection to about 30 styles as it prepares for the upcoming Miami swim show in July. The brand is the beach and resort wear brand from Espiral, the maker of sexy lingerie and club wear.

“Definitely swimwear is something that is working for us,” reported Angela Escobar, who co-owns the two brands with husband Pablo Tobon. “And we are growing it more and more.” A wide range of stores are carrying AM:PM she told BODY, including both conventional swimwear stores and sexy lingerie retailers.

“The sexy stores are interested in carrying it now. They started with cold feet. They wanted it for personal use. Now they are actually ordering” the brand for their customers. “It seems to be something that everybody enjoys having for spring and summer.” So while she has been showing the brand to mainstream stores at the swim show in Miami, it is also becoming popular with the retailers who attend the International Lingerie Show (ILS) in Las Vegas.

Escobar emphasized she is making a conscious effort to keep the brand identities for Espiral and AM:PM separate. “We try to keep AM:PM a little more sophisticated, classic. Yes, it does have a touch of sexiness to it. But we want to actually separate it from what Espiral represents. We use different fabrics. More delicate fabrics.” She added that both the fabrics and prints are “custom made” for AM:PM.

“We have a bag full of styles that take you from beach to bistro.” The resort collection includes beach cover ups as well as some night time dresses that “do not resemble the club wear of Espiral,” which is generally far more revealing and sexy. The beach collection also has dresses and sportswear meant for shopping or walking about a resort town during the day.

The whole group has “a very island feel, with a Miami touch.” It invokes “the melting pot” that Miami represents, combining the influences of “Latin inspiration,” “Miami beach, sun and water” and “international visitors.”

Wholesale prices for the swimwear, both bikinis and one pieces, range from $11.95 to $32.95, with most around $22.95. The $32.95 item, she explained, is a swim set that includes a matching sarong, “a Mexican inspired style that has a lot of gold color.”

Wholesale prices for the dresses in the AM:PM collection range from $13.95 to $22.95, with most in the $14 5o $15 area.

While last year’s AM:PM collection include leggings, those styles have been “shifted” to Espiral.

When designing AM:PM, Escobar emphasized, “more than anything, we try to keep the collection very global. We try to incorporate the vibrant prints, a few solids, a little bit of the nautical. We try to have something for every taste.” The line is designed to “have the AM:PM feel to it each year” so that customers “get what they are expecting” with the line — and so they come back again and again.

“Anything that has gold is popular now. That is selling very well. It is one of the colors of the season,” Escobar continued. An example is a gold bikini which is featured on the cover of the most recent catalog (and was published in BODY in April). Also doing well are animal prints and black and white color combinations.

Also new at AM:PM is completely redesigned packaging which includes “poly-bags with picture inserts of garments,” said Escobar. “For the swimwear, we are using reusable branded bags that allow end customers to use as [a] carry-bag for wet suits.”

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Published 05-30-2014 by -