Sunday, January 30, 2011

The "Queendom" of chic bikinis

The INC girls with Lenny, the Carioca swimsuit goddess, January 2011. "Dress shabbily and they remember the dress;dress impeccably and they remember the woman." Coco Chanel.

Rio de Janeiro is regarded as a picture of hedonism; a postcard of Ipanema beach illustrates this perception.  For decades, Ipanema has been the trendsetter in beach-wear, and the home of the skimpy bikini.  One doesn’t visit Rio without dropping in at a bikini store near the beach.  This store is probably named “Lenny”.  Lenny is a house name in Rio.  It is the first name of Ms. Lenny Niemeyer who founded the brand.  In Brazil, celebrities such as soccer players or presidents, are one-moniker persons (e.g. Lula, Dilma, and Pelé).  Ms. Niemeyer is known as Lenny. 
Lenny was not trained a beachwear and swimsuit designer but as a lanscape designer.  She is related to the famous centenarian architect Oscar Niemeyer.  Legend has it that she became a bikini designer because she could not find any suitable bikinis on the market.  She started her brand in 1993; her Carioca beach wear and fashion business has now crossed the Atlantic and is known for quality, style and wear-ability.  Her business is an achievement, as well as a design succes.  Doing business in Brazil is not for the faint of heart! Brazil may be making a buzz in the economic section of magazines, but it is not an easy country in which to do business.  It ranks 127 out of 183 economies on the 2011 World Bank Doing Business list.  Lenny’s business success is only more outstanding.
 As the proud owner of couple of Lenny’s bikinis, I had always wanted to meet her and hear her story as a successful woman entrepreneur.  Many of my friends in the International club of Rio (INC) wanted to meet with her as well.  An appointment was set through Ms. Luiza, her marketing person.  Sixteen women from different nationalities went to Lenny’s factory in Botafogo, a suburb of Rio. 
We met in her spacious, light and friendly office.  Sketches were laying on a table and wall to wall garment racks made the place unassuming but business-like.  Lenny was wearing a trapeze-cut white shirt over skinny jeans.  She greeted us warmly with a kiss, a time-honored Brazilian tradition.  We felt very welcome; soft drinks and pães de queijo (a kind of cheese buns) were served.  We chatted for over an hour.
She candidly shared with us her experience as a business woman and the many challenges she faced, how her business grew one step at a time, her patience and resourcefulness to confront the odds to stick to her business model and finally how she organizes her workers (around 150) and manages her purchases.  She explained her frustration in maintaining quality control of her products and she lamented that she had to import accessories from China instead of buying them locally.  This matter was not lost on us since we had recently visited the Sebrae craft center in downtown Rio.  Sebrae is a business organization which helps craftsmen use their own crafts to build a reliable business.  Based on Lenny’s misgivings, Sebrae has its job cut out for it.
Many of us have Lenny bikinis or beachwear in our closets.  To buy a bikini is a fearful experience for any woman, unless they are 18 or have the body of Gisele Bundchen. The first challenge is to face the light of the dressing room which makes one look fatter and flabbier than one thinks.  Swimsuits never seem to have been cut for one's bodies.  If the top fits, the bottom doesn’t.  Women face a special hurdle in choosing a bikini in Brazil.  Here bikinis, as well as one-piece suits, are smaller than elsewhere, they are cut lower too.  Above all, the bottom part of the bikini is made of two minute triangles of fabric, with the back even smaller than the front.  Lenny doesn't sell these dental floss-type bikinis, moreover a woman can place special order bikinis with the bottom and top in different sizes to fit bosomy or flat-chested bodies.  Lenny’s bikinis are flattering because they are well-cut, in stretched fabric with pleasing prints.  
We visited her factory.  The print selection process was particularly interesting; Lenny purchases the printed fabric which she can modify to her choice with a computer program.  The visit ended in the show room where we enjoyed viewing her latest collection of beachwear and chic street wear, a new addition to her line of business.  Our visit over, we went to thank Lenny for her gracious hospitality.  She gave us a nice cologne with her new collection catalogue.  We were touched by her generosity and straightforwardness, qualities often lacking in successful people.  Lenny, the carioca swimwear queen had found the time to chat with us.  Surely many of us will become loyal Lenny customers.
Before organizing the visit I had searched the web for up-to-date information on Lenny and her business.  I came across the King Monty blog which irreverently claims that Lenny is the “queen of bums” for us she is the queen of chic bums.  It makes a hell of a lot of difference.

Beatrice Labonne, 6 February 2011.

3 comments:

  1. Beatrice, congratulations publishing such an attractive blog and fascinating articles; sure you are a novice at this?

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  2. they are truly fun to read as well as informative... Lenny has become a bikini fashion legend....i remember the days... hmmm when a bikini a day change change and innovation...paulistas were a wee bit more conservative , but once in Rio.. wauuu then it was all out.... thks for sharing xo j

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