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La Jolla Company Wins the Coveted Swimsuit Edition Cover
Creating swimsuits for golden bodies on the beach has been very good to Sauvage.
The San Diego company—with a prominent retail outlet in La Jolla—recently secured the most coveted assets in the swimsuit world, those on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
“It is the gold standard, I think,” said Elizabeth Southwood, co-owner of the company with her husband. “For our industry, it is really important.”
Southwood, who is the design dynamo behind the brand, learned about the coup on Valentine’s Day.
It was a scant day before the issue hit newsstands on Feb. 15. But customers were immediately interested. Elizabeth said it made her designs more known to the general public. The brand appeal moves from a designer fashion thing to more mainstream.
According to the company’s website, sauvagewear.com, the top and bottom featured on the cover of the iconic magazine will set customers back $165.00.
“People want that particular suit,” Southwood said. “They also are more interested in the brand.” Surprisingly, the retail store still has it in stock.
“We have been running like mad trying to keep up,” she said.
The winning cover swimsuit
is available for $165.
Sports Illustrated and interviews on local TV stations also caused changes in the couple’s personal life.
“Suddenly, family and friends we haven’t talked to in years call up and say, ‘Oh I saw you on television,’” said Simon Southwood, Elizabeth’s husband. He also does the marketing and sales for the company.
The business, with multi-million-dollar yearly revenue, has been soaking up success. Three years ago it opened a prominent store on La Jolla’s Prospect Street, which functions as more than just a retail outlet.
The space is also a laboratory, a critical testing ground for the brand’s products.
“The retail store has been very helpful because we can hear people’s reactions, responses and issues,” Elizabeth said. “So the feedback is always really, really important.”
The business, named for the French description “wild,” had modest beginnings. Simon, an Englishman originally from Plymouth, describes the genesis of the company as two twenty-somethings trying to figure out what they were going to do with their lives.
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“We started from nothing,” he said. “It took probably seven years, I’d say, to get going where we were turning a profit, and we said, ‘Hey, we can make a living doing this’.”
They started the business in the garage of their North Park home, without many assets—except for Elizabeth’s gift for fashion.
“Elizabeth is self-taught,” Simon said. “She is amazing. She can pick up a pair of scissors and just cut into the fabric. There is no computer. There is no drawing.”
Elizabeth attributes her prowess as a fashion designer to being home-schooled by her mother, a sewing instructor.
Some 22 years later there is little doubt that the two, who live in Little Italy, are making a living.
They own a business with about five employees at its retail operation in La Jolla and 22 more at its production warehouse in Mira Mesa. The company distributes swimwear across the United States and to parts of Europe.
All the fabrics for the suits are imported from Italy, but the suits are manufactured in San Diego.
Given their experience, they now realize that their success is as wildly improbable as some runway fashions.
“I think we did everything the hard way,” Elizabeth said. “Without knowing too much about it, we didn’t realize how much we were getting into. I guess it’s good to go in naïve.”
Nearly blind determination is a critical element for young entrepreneurs, male or female, Elizabeth said.
And Sauvage’s wave of success and escalating brand awareness doesn’t look like it will crest any time soon.
The brand provides swimwear for the Chargers Girls’ calendar and will soon expand to another NFL Franchise—the Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleaders.
Carried along on that wave is the couple’s entire family.
Their 24 year-old-son, also named Simon, has a job in the family business that would make many young men burn with envy: creating the print materials and graphics.
That includes designing hardcover books full of gorgeous models in the company’s swimsuits, photographed at locations around the world.
Hanging out with super models is a rough life, and “he works it, too,” Elizabeth Southwood said.
Part of Simon Jr.’s job includes getting an early look at tomorrow’s sensations on the pages of the company’s promotional books, like Rosie Alice Huntington-Whiteley.
Her name may not be familiar now, but it should be soon. She will be replacing Megan Fox in the third “Transformers” movie.
“We got really lucky with her,” Elizabeth said.
Sauvage Retail
sauvagewear.com
1025 Prospect St., La Jolla
(858) 729-0015
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