After five years in swimsuits, it’s time to cover up.
British design house Orlebar Brown, known for tailored trunks that set fashion conscious swimmers back about $250 per pair, recently celebrated its fifth anniversary and decided that with age comes a bit of modesty. The brand’s spring 2013 collection, which is already available in stores, includes more than just its trunks—ubiquitous on stylish sunbathers from Montauk to Mykonos—but also a complete line of beach and resort wear.
“We’re not swim shorts in the true sporty sense of the word,” founder and designer Adam Brown says. “We’re much more of a short you can swim in. Everything we do is about that transition: from beach to bar or day to night. Anything in our collection should be able to do that.”
Indeed, the new collection includes such versatile items as summer-weight blazers, hooded sweatshirts and chinos in beach party-appropriate hues like sky blue, pea green and pink.
“The idea is to take Orlebar Brown off the beach, out of the pool and into the resort,” Brown says. “It’s a whole collection based around travel, holidays and good times.”
The brand might have been built on short shorts, but these days it caters to customers with a wider variety of tastes.
“The product still looks great at a party in Ibiza,” Brown says. “But it also works for building sand castles with the kids.”
