BIKINI BUSINESS MAKING WAVES
A Sunshine Coast surfer girl turned business owner has grown her bikini fashion brand into a force to be reckoned with in just three years.
Ebony Torrisi, 22, started her bikini fashion brand “Lovefromjanet” in 2020 and has since been able to launch full-time into her business, projected to become a sixfigure sales business this year.
Her brand was a side hustle while she took on various jobs including housekeeping and babysitting between travelling until about seven months ago, when she settled back on the Sunshine Coast to focus entirely on Lovefromjanet.
Ms Torrisi said she had been doing everything she possibly could to market her bikinis, from sending out free products to interacting with content creators and influencers.
Now she has a huge audience in Australia and ships her product internationally, with girls often coming up to Ms Torrisi to tell her they love her brand and feel confident wearing her bikinis.
“It’s nice to know people actually think highly of my business I work so hard towards,” she said.
Her brand name – built on “sisterhood” – is a reference to her mother’s name Janet and her grandmother’s maiden name “Love”, forming Lovefromjanet to symbolise their “femininity, strength and power”.
Ms Torrisi said her mother was a “bit of a beach babe back in the day” and she has recreated a print her mother wore in the ’80s.
Ms Torrisi’s designs, which are handmade on the Gold Coast, are ’80s and ’90s inspired and she aims to create unique bikinis which help girls feel confident.
She began working for her sister in the fashion industry when she was 15 and came to a point where she wanted to start her own brand.
“I always loved the industry and I was always into fashion and wanted to wear my own unique style,” she said.
“I was always independent and couldn’t stick at a job and being told what to do.”
Her monthly drop of new prints generally sold between 50 and 100 bikinis within a few days on top of her daily sales, she said.
She only sold about 20 bikinis per month before she went full-time.
Ms Torrisi achieved a record sale last November, when she sold 130 bikinis in one day.
Many content creators and models have sported her fashion pieces, including Tammy Hembrow, Isabelle Mathers, and Alana Blanchard.
Ms Torrisi grew up with seven siblings and attended Coolum State High School, and her sisters frequently help out packing orders and supporting the business.
The family all surf in their free time.
Ms Torrisi runs her business from her apartment but hopes to work from a warehouse and expand further internationally.
“It’s pretty amazing how much you can achieve when you put your mind to something,” she said.
Ms Torrisi said she faced many challenges evolving her business, almost never hearing back from influencers and people not taking her seriously due to her age.
She said starting a business came with many ups and downs and had advice to other young aspiring business owners.
“Just start it,” she said. “Be persistent, don’t give up and just keep going.
“Be very passionate about what you do because it’s going to become your whole life”