​​In our long-running series “How I’m Making It,” we talk to people making a living in the fashion and beauty industries about how they broke in and found success.

Growing up in Michigan’s suburbs, Brittany Kozerski Freeney first realized she could pursue a fashion career during her high school AP art class.

This wasn’t your typical art course: Her teacher personalized the curriculum to Freeney’s interest in fashion by posing “Project Runway”-inspired challenges, such as reworking the design of a thrifted pair of shoes, which opened the door to her future in the industry. (In quite the full-circle moment, she would even go on to work alongside the series’ long-running guest judge, Marie Claire‘s Nina Garcia.)

After graduating from the University of Michigan, Freeney booked a one-way ticket to New York City and soon landed the role a million girls would kill for: fashion assistant intern at Vogue. She then pivoted to GQ‘s fashion bookings team (“Still to this day I don’t hire stylists, I book all my shoots myself,” she tells Fashionista), and later joined Marie Claire as an assistant before climbing the ranks to senior market editor. “That was really, I would say, my home,” Freeney reflects.

While styling photoshoots or compiling market picks, Freeney and her fellow editors kept hitting the same roadblock: There wasn’t a high-quality layering brand across the swimwear and shapewear markets that could hold its own when styled with luxury labels. Back in 2016’s peak Instagram baddie era, swimwear was especially strappy and print-heavy, so Freeney launched Jade Swim as a sleek, minimalist alternative for seamless beach-to-boardwalk transitions.

Jade suits are known for their thick lining that offers a built-in sculpting effect, as well as primarily monochromatic colorways and timeless necklines, often referencing styles from the ’70s through the ’90s.

“I want every person to be able to come to Jade and find something,” Freeney says. “To do that, I need to keep it classic, chic [and] minimal. [It’s] that whole idea of the person bringing their style to the brand, the customer making that suit work for them.”

Nine years in, the made-in-the-U.S. label is stocked at top retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Bergdorf Goodman; it’s also a celebrity favorite. (Hailey Bieber recently donned the brand’s Trophy One Piece in her Vogue cover photoshoot.)

As Jade Swim prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary — a milestone few brands ultimately achieve — Freeney discusses refocusing her retail strategy, the brand’s emphasis on sustainability, navigating an ever-changing tariff environment, and how she plans to make Jade a household name.

How did your experience as a fashion editor and stylist at Marie Claire inform your career shift to swimwear founder?

Because I was in those senior meetings, in terms of advertisers and seeing a little bit more of the full picture, I started to understand branding and what it means to a brand to be featured and have a credit and the whole flow of it.

When you’re an assistant, you don’t understand why you’re hanging the rack that way or why you’re last-minute calling in something, but then as you get more experience, you understand how everything comes together and every aspect of it is so important for a brand.

What initially inspired you to enter the swimwear space with Jade Swim?

There wasn’t a minimal, clean brand out there that could speak to me, and also I knew it would solve a lot of issues for stylists and for editors. I really felt like there was a void in the market.

Now, times have changed, it’s been nine years. Things have happened in the industry to go more toward the minimal route, but at that time, it was so print- [and] strap-heavy, just kind of “look at me,” where my aesthetic was more like, let’s do clean-cut, let’s then be able to put that shoe on with that bag with that coverup and also have a suit that’s appropriate for most things.

Walk me through your design process for creating minimalist swimwear pieces.

What we started doing from the beginning is that we never lined with a super stretchy, cheaper lining. We always lined with this thick material on the inside and the outside, so what that did was it created a sculpting effect to the suit.

We don’t have padding, we just started some adjustable straps in the last two years, but all of that is from the inside construction of the suit and having it be really clean and minimal […] all of these little design tweaks that I learned through the years being a stylist on set.

I only design one-pieces that can be worn with a skirt, shorts or pants. So any design detail won’t interfere with the waist whether it’s high waisted, low waisted, that middle section. That was the brand DNA from the beginning, I wanted to be able to transition from day to night.

How does Jade Swim navigate evolving swimwear trends?

Our customer is classic chic, maybe inspired by a trend, but not changing every season. So our bestsellers are still our bestsellers from nine years ago.

We might produce a new silhouette that might speak more to a current trend, but it’s never going to compete with our heavy hitters, so we lean into it. We just started doing prints this year, which was maybe a little bit of peer pressure from the stores, and that’s been fun. But they’re very Jade prints, like a couple of dots and a couple of palm trees, but very, very clean. The minute I start chasing every trend or chasing what every store wants, then it’s like I’m a brand for everyone that does everything, but I can’t do everything.

What role does sustainability play in Jade Swim’s designs and its brand ethos?

That’s the part where it’s hard to understand the consumer’s mindset. From the beginning, we tried to start with the recycled fabric and different initiatives that we’ve tried. And because we’re made in the U.S., and the extra money that goes toward that, sometimes there’s customers that fully are committed to that and respect it and love it, and then there’s customers who, for them, quite honestly it’s more about the design and the price point.

That’s a balancing act that we still try to figure out — how can we stay true to the things and the initiatives that we can do that won’t break the bank, that still allow us to be profitable. Maybe there’s a new fabric that people are really loving that doesn’t come recycled, but we make sure it’s Oeko-Tex certified. With the retail partners that we have, we can lean more into it with their support.

How has Jade Swim approached choosing which retailers to partner with? How have they helped grow the business?

In nine years, I can say we’ve been in every store that was on my target list and more. What we’re working on currently is just getting back to the brand DNA and I make no apologies about that. The list that was the dream when I started is where I see us staying.

When you’re in so many stores, you’re also competing against your own website. Especially now with digital marketing, I can never spend as a smaller brand the same amount of money as a big retailer can. The more we shift to DTC and go back to being at least 50% — because there was a minute that we shifted so much to the stores, but our goal is to shift more to our own website and have retail partners that we know are just natural relationships.

How is Jade Swim navigating tariff uncertainty and overall economic volatility right now?

This is the most directly impacted season we’ve ever had. Normally I would say we have creative freedom, and anything in terms of profitability, I’ll just deal [with] on the back end, I’ll talk to my team. But the tariffs and what it can do to a medium- to small-sized business can be really brutal come August. We played it pretty safe in terms of the vendors that we’re going to work with. One country, ironically, just looking and analyzing, we would’ve stayed away from just for savings and more profitability — now that country is actually on the lower side, so we actually leaned into that country.

All of the swimwear brands, whether they admit it or not, we’re all settling back to a more realistic way of operating, a realistic scaling, but also now with this economic pressure… it’s really hard.

What is Jade Swim’s strategy for marketing and building its audience?

For celebrities and influencers, we’ve never paid anyone to wear our suits. We respond to stylists, celebrity stylists, that send requests or we do blind gifting.

Being in the stores is also helpful for marketing because maybe that person wouldn’t have seen you if you weren’t in that very well-known store. But for us, there hasn’t really been a strategy, which is something that I’m looking forward to. Our next goal is to become a household name, and with that, that’s more marketing, that’s more pop-ups and maybe we do more activations with the retailers that we are with.

Looking ahead, what are some of your future goals for Jade Swim?

Maybe looking for outside investment or a potential sell or partial, just because I feel like with nine years I’ve probably taken it as far as I personally can because we have such a small team and because it’s self-funded. We have so many ideas, so many different divisions… kids, shapewear, minimal travel beauty products, all of that. But for us, the next stage would be outside investment and really taking it to that level.

What advice would you give to those looking to explore a similar career path?

Make sure you really want it. When I say “really want it,” I mean on every level. Your friends will probably have a job where, when they leave at 5 p.m., they detach, they leave their job, they can focus on everything. But when you own a business and especially a fashion business, it’s literally with you 24/7.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Please note: Occasionally, we use affiliate links on our site. This in no way affects our editorial decision-making.

Fashionista’s audience includes 1 million site visitors, 110,000 newsletter subscribers and 4.74 million social media followers. Want to know how to reach them? Learn more.

#Fashion #Editor #Jade #Swim #Scaling #9YearOld #Brand