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Sporty & Rich continues its impressive growth with category expansion.

The four-year-old loungewear brand founded by Emily Oberg unveiled its first swimwear collection on Monday, marking the brand’s latest category expansion. Sporty & Rich made its first foray into swimwear last year with a collaboration with Solid & Striped.

The first Sporty & Rich swimwear collection includes bikinis and one-piece swimsuits in a brown, off-white and green color palette. Both styles include high-cut bottoms and strappy tops.

The collection also includes t-shirts, shorts, button-up shirts, crewnecks, and hats to match your swimwear.

“I make things that I might want to wear, things that I probably wouldn’t find, or things that I found and want to make better,” Oberg said of her design process. never makes a fashion piece – nothing too dangerous or too original. Many basics and staples.

According to the company, a sporty and rich swimwear collection is coming as the brand continues its growth trajectory. Sporty & Rich has seen sales jump from $400,000 in 2019, thanks to a boom in loungewear, as people stayed home and sought out comfortable clothing options during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020 he said it increased to $4 million. The following year, the brand made him $12 million in sales, and this year he expects to make $20 million to $24 million.

“People always wear [loungewear] before it became popular [during the pandemic]said Oberg. “I don’t think sweatsuits and comfy clothes will ever go away. There’s a time and a place for that.”

Oberg experienced unprecedented growth amid the pandemic, but the fast pace almost destroyed the brand as it struggled to keep up with demand, she said.

“Sometimes growth kills a brand,” she said. “It happens a lot before COVID[-19], we were quite small.Sales were nothing special, but with COVID[-19] It expanded and growth almost killed us. You could say we were on the verge of it, and we figured it out quickly. ”

Oberg kept the business going by growing his team, building a customer service team, and setting up systems to run more smoothly, including using new distribution centers and factories.

These changes also came at a time of controversy between the founder and her label. was criticized for an insensitive Instagram post comparing it to You don’t have to be rich to be healthy. Many called the brand, who has since deleted the post, elitism.

Oberg was also accused of making insensitive comments on podcasts and laughing at racially insensitive jokes.

“I mean, I am a woman, a founder of an Asian minority, and I have not faced discrimination myself, so I am very aware of these things and have dealt with them firsthand,” Oberg said. Mr. Controversy. “It’s not that I have to be consciously not racist because I think it’s embedded in me. That’s how I was born. How many of these other founders I feel like I should have read all these books on how not to be racist, but to me it wasn’t about who I was. be more sensitive to the fact that they do not have access to healthy foods. [I was] It’s not confidential, but I think I wasn’t sensitive enough to people. No. In that sense, I think the current content is more for everyone. There are tons of articles out there on how to get healthy with basically minimal resources, but these are things you can do when you have zero budget. The brand as a whole is fairly accessible and has a lower price point than other streetwear brands. ”

Sporty & Rich sells t-shirts for $60, sweatshirts for $150-185, and sports bras for $85.

Oberg explained that hiring more staff and implementing a new system helped correct those missteps since the controversy.

In the future, Oberg hopes to release a Sporty & Rich coffee book and open a storefront.

“It’s important to have a real point of contact for people to discover the brand’s world and lifestyle,” she said. But I think it’s probably a good thing to create a bigger, stronger sense of community, and stores help with that.”