May 13, 2024 • 28 mins
In our latest episode of InspiHER'd, join hosts Stacey Fleece and Samantha Tradelius as they dive into a discussion with swimsuit designer, Megan Mae Stevens. Explore Megan's inspiring journey from being a model to creating her swimwear brand, Megan Mae Miami. Listen to the curious adventures of this Michigan-native-turned-Miami-model and how she filled a crucial gap in the quality swimwear market.
We delve into Megan's approach towards crafting swimwear that perfectly amalgamates comfort, design, and sustainability. Moreover, Megan shares her personal skin journey, creating an awareness towards sun damage, and the significance of sun care. She introspects the balance between admiring sun-kissed skin and valuing skin health. Laughter, interesting narratives, and a spotlight on style and sustainability—this episode has it all. Tune in to equip yourselves with fashion-forward, eco-friendly inspirations before you hit the beach this season.
As an added bonus, listen to Megan, a skin-nourishing product expert, tell the tale of her successful ventures—from Miami Swim Week to New York Fashion Week. Delve deep into her powerful brand story, propelled by social media. Not one to skim the surface, Megan also talks at length about her passion for women's empowerment, self-esteem, body image, and their place in her swimsuit designs.
We also look into the future. Megan shares plans for organizing retreats to foster self-love among women. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in fashion, beauty, and self-development. Immerse in InspiHER'd to journey with us on a captivating exploration of the inspiring world of Megan Mae.
Luxury Swimwear | Fade-Proof Color | Megan Mae Miami®
Megan Mae Miami Swimwear (@meganmaemiami) • Instagram photos and videos
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Inspired, your grown-up girl talk.
I'm Stacey Fleece, and as always, I'm here with Samantha Tredelius.
Hey, Samantha, you know what it is? Oh, you know what it almost is?
Tell me now. Hot Girl Summer.
You know what? That is correct. I think every day is Hot Girl Day.
It is also a day that we're going to be surrounded by the blonde energy because
(00:22):
our guest today has the same hair color we do, and you know,
that means it's going to be a good show. Of course.
Well, they all are. But when you get the blondes together, there's nothing wrong.
So I'm super excited because summer is around the corner. And for a lot of us,
that is, oh, my God, what am I going to wear on the beach?
Do you get a new swimsuit every year? Like, I don't, I'm old now.
(00:45):
So no, I don't. I can kind of transition to some different things.
However, some of the suits tend to fade and tend to kind of not be as fantastic,
which is something we're going to be talking a little bit.
Yeah. You know why? Because I buy, I buy shitty quality.
So I'm over that. And our guest today is going to help with that.
We have with us today, Megan Stevens of Megan May Miami.
(01:08):
Megan, thank you for being here from Florida.
Oh my goodness. Thanks for having me, guys. It's a pleasure to be here.
Can't wait to dive into everything.
But yes, definitely getting hot and humid here, here in Miami.
We have a lot to talk about because first of all, you're, I'm just going to
put it right out there at the beginning.
We're going to bump this up later too, but your designs, your swimsuit designs are gorgeous.
(01:34):
Beautiful. And I'm hoping that by the time it gets hot here,
I will be able to fit my ass into one of them.
So that is to be seen. Hang tight, everybody. I'll report back later.
But you are the founder and creative designer of Megan May Miami.
Yeah, a swimsuit among other things line but started with swimsuits,
(01:55):
which is cool because you're from Michigan where they get I don't know 186 feet of snow every year.
Oh, let's let's back this up a little bit.
How did the girl from Michigan, blue lips and all, find your way to Miami and
(02:16):
into the world of swimsuit design?
Yeah, exactly. And you're so right about the blue lips. That is one of the reasons
that I had to move to Miami. Absolutely.
It was because in Michigan growing up, I always actually had blue lips.
I was freezing in class, always wore those extra layers, was always running
from my car to the next place.
You'd never find me. I don't like to snowboard. I don't go skiing.
(02:39):
I am like the farthest from a Michigan person there is. Were you like eight
years old when you were like, fuck this, when I get older, I'm out?
Exactly. It was actually when I was 10 years old, we went on vacation to Orlando to Disney World.
And I remember this little girl holding on to her dad's pant leg.
And I was talking to her. I was eight as well.
And I was like, where are you from? She's like, I live here. I'm like, what?
(03:02):
You can live in Orlando? I'm like, I'm in. I'm in. Where do I sign up?
Exactly. So I went for vacation there.
But obviously, from that moment on, I knew I was going to move to Florida and
Orlando specifically was where I ended up going to college. Funny enough.
So did you, did you apply to any colleges in cold weather states?
(03:24):
I didn't. Well, actually I did one year at, it's called Saginaw Valley State University.
So I did one year there. As soon
as I could get out, I did. And I moved to Florida and never looked back.
I love that. I love that. So let's talk about when you decided,
like, when was it, hey, let's start a swimwear line. When did that come to be?
(03:45):
Yes. So when I moved to Florida, I've been here for about 10 years now.
And when I moved to Miami specifically is when I was doing more swimwear modeling.
There's a lot of opportunity down here. That's another reason why I moved to
Florida. I just feel like I'm from a small town.
And yes, I love going back home for Christmas, Thanksgiving,
the holidays, but I just couldn't be there long term.
(04:08):
So there's a lot of opportunity in Miami. And one of those was through modeling.
So I moved down here, did promotional modeling. I did events at trade shows
and some of that was swimwear.
So with that, there was a lot of, I tried on a lot of swimwear, a lot of pieces.
And I felt that there was something sort of missing.
(04:30):
And I wanted to go into that a little bit later. I didn't know how much you
guys wanted me to talk about up front. Oh, we want to go all in now.
Let's open the kimono. Let's go. So let's discuss my issues with faded swimwear
and shitty quality. Let's let's go.
Yeah. Yeah. So trying on a lot of these swimsuits, I mean, there's a ton.
(04:51):
And the fact of the matter is a lot of them are made overseas where the quality
control just isn't there.
A lot of them sadly are in sweatshops, like child labor, the things that like
people don't want to talk about.
And so that's some of the things I found. And also the sizing was just off.
I would say it's a small, but it fit like a large or something like that.
You just never knew what you were are going to get.
(05:13):
I always find it the other way around, by the way. Yeah.
In case anybody's wondering, I've never found a small that fits like a large.
It's generally a large that fits like a small, but cool, cool, cool. I love it. Yeah.
So trying on all these different swimsuits, I just felt like there was a gap
(05:33):
in the market where I could find something like, hey, why don't I create something
that I enjoy wearing that is sustainable,
that's healthy and good for the ocean and fits me right and isn't going to fade.
And it's called bleeding in the fashion world. The color will bleed onto other colors.
And I just didn't want that to be the case with my swimwear.
(05:54):
So I always loved to understand what it's like to actually have an idea,
to create a product, and then get it on shelves.
So the actual, you know, prototypes or versions of the suits,
like how many of them would you create before you'd have a final product that
you're like, this is the one?
Oh my goodness. There's, there's so much back and forth. Like people don't really
(06:17):
think about that whole process.
So that's a great question. It's like from actually getting it from an idea
in your head down on paper, that is the hardest part.
Like it seems like a lot of people want to start a business,
but how do you actually make it real?
As far as how many renditions we go through and iterations, I would say there's at least 50 to start.
(06:38):
Like that was in the very beginning. We had like 50 drawings where we had,
and then we would make tweaks.
You have to go through a process of the fitting on it's called a fit model,
but it really is just a, an industry industry standard sized model.
You fit it on a small, then you have to grade it to different sizing.
But yeah, there's a lot of back and forth. Something is off with the straps.
(07:01):
That's why a lot of our swimwear is adjustable, just because you don't know.
Everyone's body type is different. So yeah, there's a lot that goes into it
from the idea all the way to the finished product.
You have said that the time to develop a product was a shock to you when you started this process.
So one of the things you have coming up is Miami Swim Week fashion show at the
(07:26):
end of May, and you'll be appearing in the show there.
Like how far in advance this Miami Swim Week, it starts May 29th, 2024.
Are you like, is this, are you showing ideas that you had in 2022?
Like how far, how long is this? How long does this take? How early do you have to start?
(07:47):
Yeah. So something about me and my personality is I tend to be somewhat of a
last minute person where I could have all of the plans in the world,
like the perfect set plan but then i may just
change my mind last minute so that's actually
where we're at right now is we are we have
the ideas we have the overarching plan but we just settled on the collections
(08:11):
yesterday like literally yesterday we had a meeting so yeah you had three and
a half weeks i mean yeah yeah wrong i mean yeah it's not like it's next week
so you do you do have a little bit of leeway a little bit of time but the collections themselves stuff.
I mean, if you're, if you're talking about, you know, obviously creating the
line and it's taking, you know, 50 different versions of it to get right.
(08:32):
I mean, the stuff that you're planning on putting in the show,
you, you would have had to do maybe, you know, last year, you know, Q4 kind of stuff, right?
Yes. So those are, those are the actual pieces.
Like that's the swimsuit itself. Like the pattern you would call it, like that is set.
So we're good on the patterns, but the fabric is what I was like,
hold on, you guys, I don't want to come out with anything basic, anything boring.
(08:57):
Not that the stuff is boring, but
I wanted to wow people at Miami Swimming because the lights are hitting.
You want some kind of, without giving too much away, some sparkle, some bedazzle.
I'll hint a little bit of this, some floral and shimmery.
So we've been on the hunt for beautiful fabrics, but we ended up finding some in Spain.
(09:18):
And part of the brand is we're eco-friendly. So that's the challenge is finding
these gorgeous fabrics that we can also change the colors around.
We can scale it to different sizes, but also make it eco-friendly.
So it's been a mission, but we found our pieces.
So are you traveling internationally to go like touch and feel fabrics and like see what's up?
(09:39):
A lot of it actually comes just here. So yeah, it comes here.
We speak to different manufacturers and they ship samples.
We have the books that we look at and then we take the gorgeous colors that
we see and we draw it out with the fabrics and we're able to create our own,
creation out of it. Because we talked to a lot of women that are makers and
(10:00):
creators, and they work a lot in these different capacities with vendors overseas.
And it's hard to be a woman in these different spaces because a lot of other
countries don't really, I mean, first of all, you're an American woman, right?
So that's a whole nother, and you're a blonde woman on top of it, right?
So there's a lot of, you know, there are some roadblocks there.
(10:21):
So it's nice to hear that you're able to kind of, you know, overcome them to
be able to create the line.
And the sustainability factor, I think is really great that that's something
that you're thinking about as far as, you know, fabric goes,
because I don't know that a lot of creators are doing that.
Yeah, exactly. And something I'm really excited about is at Miami Swim Week.
Since we just launched the sun care line, we have two thirds of it launched.
(10:44):
We still have two more pieces or two more, I guess you call them bottles to come out.
What am I calling? I call everything pieces because it's swimwear,
but it's two more products we'll say.
So I'm excited to launch some of that at Miami Swim Week as well.
We want to give like the girls each a bottle to walk out with at the end.
Like when everyone does their little waterfall of everyone walking,
(11:04):
everyone's going to have a bottle.
So I'm excited because this sun caroline is an entirely new animal.
Yeah. Tell us a little about that because that seems like a very obvious extension.
I mean, you've got the swimsuits and the cover-ups and the surf tops and things
like that. And now you've taken it really to a different type of product with
(11:26):
the sun care, which is such a cool extension of your business.
So how did that come to be? And what can we expect in that line?
Yes. So you're right. It's a natural extension. And I would say sun care is my true passion.
Like skincare is really my true passion. I love taking care of my skin.
A little backstory is in high school, my grandmother got a tanning bed and being
(11:50):
in Michigan, it's obviously freezing.
I'm blue lips after school. I would literally go every day in high school,
my senior year and lay in the the tanning bed for 40 minutes and 40 minutes.
It was a 20 minute max. I did it twice. Not good.
Horrible. Oh my God. Holy moly. Yes. For yeah. So not great.
(12:12):
Definitely eventually turned tan, but didn't stay for long.
And what's so crazy looking back at that as I'm like, why did I do that to myself?
You wear sweatshirts anyway.
It's like, Ooh, roll up the sleeves and see a little tan for a second.
We didn't know what we didn't know. right exactly so
like fast forward to today i am protecting my
skin ever since i was 20 and moved to florida i wore sunscreen
(12:34):
and always protected my face i wear a hat outside you won't catch me outside
without a hat and unless i'm like running somewhere really quickly but yeah
i just really think sun protection is important especially like not no not really
thinking about it in high school just we have to put our skin first it's we
it's attached to us our entire lives so,
(12:54):
So, yeah, we don't we don't think about it till we get older, usually.
And, you know, or we have problems, which is Megan's not there yet.
She's not. No, Megan is not there yet. But, you know, we my aunt is like 70
and she's like Christy Brinkley gorgeous.
And she was always like, you need to wear the sunscreen.
So I always had the sunscreen concept in the back of my head.
(13:15):
But and even with my girls, like I try to get them to wear it.
But you don't until you get older and you start to really know what's going
on with your skin. And so as far as like the two different things,
which one was harder to kind of get going with?
I mean, just from a process standpoint,
like was the skincare part more challenging than the swimwear line?
No, the swimwear is much more challenging because finding the fabric,
(13:37):
finding the eco-friendly fabric on top of it, the sizing and the straps, the different shapes,
like the patterns, like the different butt shapes that it has ruching.
Everything's double-sided, so it's not thin and cheap looking.
It's thick and luxurious.
And I'm very picky. The sun care, as far as that goes, we know the ingredients
(14:02):
that we want in it. We know what we definitely want it to have.
It has skin nourishing ingredients. It's hydrating for the skin.
It has vitamin C, vitamin E. It's actually anti-aging, which is my favorite part.
So I knew the key ingredients that I wanted in it.
So that was a more straight and narrow shot.
Of course, there was some back and forth, but it was a lot easier because I
(14:23):
knew exactly what I wanted versus fashion's an art form.
Fashion's more creative and not everyone's going to love everything you put
out too, mind you. So it's definitely, it takes a lot more in that process.
Something that is hard sometimes because everyone has an opinion about everything.
One of the questions we always love to ask is like, so your product,
(14:46):
you get it, you've got it in hand, and now you're going to go sell it to the world.
How have you been successful with getting your brand out into orbit?
Oh, yes. So I would say number one is doing these shows starting with Miami Swim Week.
It's like a holiday week here. It's like Christmas, but for Miami.
So these shows, I would say, have been the number one. We actually did six shows
(15:11):
last year, which was very exciting.
Yes, we went from Miami. We went up to New York twice.
We did New York Fashion Week, New York Swim Week, Hamptons. We went to the Hamptons. That was cool.
So I would say doing the fashion shows, getting content from the shows.
Obviously, social media is a really big one.
We like to work with affiliates and give them an incentive to talk about the brand as well.
(15:35):
So they get a code. So it's a process. It's not an overnight night thing.
We're still, you know, doing more shows this year. But that's that's been the
main way I would say is the shows.
And is it hard to go? I mean, because you got to bring everything you got to
manage all the talent do I mean, is that part?
I mean, I've never put on a fashion show in that way. Is it hard?
Yeah, so we have we have a small team. So it's not just me just sewing suits and things like that.
(16:01):
So we have a team and we have one of she's like my second Second mother,
I would say Joanne, she is in a shipping department and she is take she takes
care of like the numbers of everything.
So she helps bring everything down, organize everything. She's much more organized in that sense.
I'm kind of the creative mind of it. But we have a team.
(16:21):
We have multiple I would say there's how many if I would count,
there's probably six of us at Miami Swim Week that help get the girls dressed
kind of create the order.
So it's a lot. It's a lot. It takes an army. It takes a team of hardworking people, definitely.
Then somebody shooting the content from behind the scenes as well. So a lot goes into it.
(16:41):
Is there any bullshit behind the scenes? Is there any drama?
I always love that one. Oh, yeah.
I gotta assume there's like- Is there tea behind the scenes that we should know about?
Oh, yeah. The tea behind the scenes. I love it. Yeah. Let's think. Let's think.
As far as for me last year, I did find it odd.
I don't want to- Obviously, I'm not going to say the person's name.
(17:03):
I do find it odd some of the people that they let into the dressing rooms were
with a different show this year, so I don't want to say certain names.
But anyway, last year, they were letting these, in my opinion,
odd people into where girls are literally changing with video cameras.
And they are, in my opinion, acting like a reporter.
(17:25):
And they're walking up to people in your face and like, hey,
hey, Megan May, can you tell us about your line?
But it's too close for comfort almost. most like, wait, how did you get back here?
And like the girls changing.
I think that's, that's a little too much for me.
That can be very uncomfortable. And a lot of these girls are young too.
(17:46):
And so that's like, I mean, that's not normal.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we want to make sure that we have like changing tents
because there's some people just like somehow get back there.
And some girls are literally changing like out in the open.
And I just think there's a line that's kind of crossed when these people are
roaming around back there.
(18:08):
I want to take a little shift in this discussion. You have a background in sport and exercise science.
You have a background as a personal trainer. You were a swimsuit model yourself
before you decided to launch your own line and thankful you did.
But honestly, you could put yourself in a garbage bag and look gorgeous. And there's such a...
(18:31):
Lack of confidence level with a lot of women, especially when it comes to swimwear, right?
Like we live in this world now where social media is everywhere and who knows
what's real and what's not on social media.
We all know that a lot of it is airbrushed and doctored and posed right and
this and that and whatever.
And the perfection is not attainable, but we tend to see it every day,
(18:56):
which I think makes people even feel worse about the way they look.
So you have now stepped into to design a line, that is probably one of the most
difficult things for a woman, an average woman to put on.
So what kind of thought process goes into the psyche of your customers in helping
them have that confidence to be able to walk out on the beach and wear your
(19:17):
amazing, beautiful suits?
Yes. So another one of my passions is, I'm going to mention that I actually
have three YouTube channels.
And I'll get into that in a minute. But one of them is about the inner world,
the psyche, the mindset of loving yourself from the inside out.
(19:38):
So I myself designed these suits with an inscription on the inside of all of them.
And I'll get deeper in a moment. But I'll start with the swimwear because that's
that's where we're at right now.
So inside of all the suits, there is is an inscription.
And I kind of like to see it as a fortune cookie almost. But each one is like
a mantra or a quote that are handpicked by me.
(20:01):
Like some are create your reality, grateful from the start, things like that,
that help remind the person to love themselves from the inside out.
But I want to take that a step further because like you said,
it's like it's in our faces every day where people have this pressure to be
absolutely perfect, to be on point.
And I feel that pressure myself every day. I put that pressure on myself.
(20:24):
So what I want to venture out to in the future even is I want to host retreats for women.
That is okay, again, taking a step backwards. I actually have my certification
from London Hypnosis Academy for hypnosis.
And I want to take girls into kind of like an inner world retreat where they
(20:45):
would come to Miami, maybe I'll start on zoom.
This is still like, again, a thought process that I have, but everything starts with an idea, right?
So I want to have girls come to a retreat and really kind of show them how to
love themselves from the inside out because there's too much of the rah,
rah, just rah, rah, right?
Like somehow I want, like, there's actually a process.
(21:08):
And one of the books I'm reading right now is how it's called how to the secrets
of being happy. And it's about like the main point of it so far is providing people with choice and,
And sometimes we feel that we wake up and these thoughts just come to us and
like, oh, maybe people don't think they're pretty or they don't think they're
worthy or they're not, they're too much of this or not enough of that.
(21:30):
It's this loud noise, especially with the social media that we live in nowadays.
Like I can't even go on TikTok. I literally have to close my eyes and tell I'm
on my page because it's flashing with advertisements,
with loud noises, with repetitive, in my opinion, it's kind of scary,
repetitive, like, bad music, even the music industry is corrupt,
(21:52):
in my opinion, like, we can if you want juice, like we can talk about all that.
Horrible, it's evil, it is bad. And so it's about to be banned, apparently.
Hope it is like, if we're talking freely, I
honestly hope it is I think it is a it's obviously
we we need social media to spread a
(22:15):
positive message but if there is say repetitive
say it's a song and say it has like
bad words in it or just like negative meaning to it that girl is like editing
her video with that song playing over and over because it doesn't stop so you
turn the music down and so it's just it's what i'm trying to say is everyone like you have to
(22:40):
stand guard at the door of your mind or else anything can just come in there from what you see,
from what you hear, from what you're feeling.
Even when I turned on TikTok, again, that's what I'm saying.
I have to close my eyes because I actually saw something scary.
It was an advertisement. I'm like, I didn't want to see that image.
So you have to stand guard and protect your thoughts, protect your mind.
(23:01):
And with that, you can hardwire. It's like a computer.
We need to to update our computer software. We need to update our mind software every now and again.
We update our phones all the time, but our minds need that update.
I think for our youth, you know, because we're kind of, you know,
we, we know enough to go, okay, like I need to turn this off.
(23:24):
I need to go to bed. I need to do we know enough for that?
I don't know that we do. I think we know better. You know, we as 40 and 50 year
old women, we should know better.
But for the young girls, it's a total different playing field.
I mean, my daughter's 13 and we've, you know, been able to not have social media in the house.
(23:45):
And I feel like I am losing the battle, but I will hold the line as long as I can.
And my mindset is more like when you're emotionally able to handle like the
things that are going to come at you, then we can have this discussion,
but I don't feel like you're ready.
But going more back into, you know, the body image conversation,
which we haven't had in a while, Stace, but here we go. We're back.
(24:05):
I mean, we've got the perfect consult here. You know, it is going back to what you're saying about,
you know, kind of bringing in this whole approach to the way that women feel
about themselves is something I think Megan is so incredible about when you're
designing and you're thinking about those mantras or those things that can help
(24:26):
a woman feel better about herself.
Because we all know like some days we just wake up and we feel like we don't
feel very good about ourselves.
And that's because the things we see are the things we hear.
And it's, it's an ongoing battle. all.
Yeah. So I would say it's starting with that, starting with being aware of what
(24:46):
we are consuming on a day-to-day basis of like, what are we watching?
What are we reading? What are we listening to?
Starting with that, that will help kind of build a foundation,
like a solid foundation of knowing who we are, that no matter what we see or
no matter what somebody tells us who they think we are at our deepest level,
(25:09):
at our foundation, at our core, we will know who we are.
And it's not easy, but that is the goal. And that's what I would love for women is to know that.
Start with knowing who you are first. Become aware of who you are.
And I like to say, instead of finding yourself, I really believe in creating yourself.
We get to decide who we are. we get
(25:32):
to decide not not your the outside world
not somebody that's commenting on something on your
women pay attention to that enough though even even women
that that do know better you know that they don't they don't really truly understand
you know that they have that directive that they can they can make those decisions
i it's such a it's like i feel like it's a whole nother episode i know i just
(25:55):
yeah we went deep but this is good and and to think about that your designs coming
out of your mind and your pen to paper are impacting in a positive way that
women feel about themselves.
And I know this sounds trivial, but like this is the whole hot girl summer thing.
It's a thing and it's a big deal.
And so to be able to design something that women can feel good in and sort of
(26:19):
even give them a foundation of creating themselves, as you say,
that's got to be a pretty cool thing to go to sleep with at night.
Yes, thank you. And that is also why I'm excited too with the,
what we have at Miami Swim Loop.
We have a lot of new styles coming out that I'm really looking forward for everyone to see.
When are those going to be available to the consumer?
(26:40):
That would be, we are in, it probably would be towards middle summer because
we're just debuting that.
So it'd be more towards July, but Miami Swim Week is June 1st.
So we'll have a few weeks after that to get everything in inventory.
Okay. Asking for a friend, what is the design top that you have that is best
(27:01):
for a woman with big boobs?
First thing that comes to mind is ambition. That has underwire,
so it feels like they're more supported.
Also passionate. That is the style. I'd like to do that one.
Yeah, passionate. I would say passionate because you can wrap it different ways.
(27:22):
And so you can have it tighter or looser depending.
And it has kind of like a thicker band at the bottom. So So you just feel more held up and supported.
I love it. Where can we find these wonderful designs? Tell our listeners where to find you.
Yes, yes. You can find all of these designs on MeganMayMiami.com.
And I know there's Megan's, it's so many different ways to spell it,
(27:45):
but it's N-E-G-A-N-M-A-E Miami.com.
And that's the same for Instagram as well. And my personal is MeganMayStevens.
So that is the personal Instagram.
I love it. We're going to tag all of your different places where our folks can
find you in our show notes.
Megan, you are one to keep an eye on. We weren't wrong when we started off saying
(28:08):
the blondes are bringing it today.
And we are definitely excited to see this show in Miami and what you come up
with. You are just an incredible woman doing incredible things.
So thank you so much for sharing this. And we hope that everybody gets out there
this week and is inspired.
Hello, and welcome to Inspired, your grown-up girl talk.
I'm Stacey Fleece, and as always, I'm here with Samantha Tredelius.
Hey, Samantha, you know what it is? Oh, you know what it almost is?
Tell me now. Hot Girl Summer.
You know what? That is correct. I think every day is Hot Girl Day.
It is also a day that we're going to be surrounded by the blonde energy because
(00:22):
our guest today has the same hair color we do, and you know,
that means it's going to be a good show. Of course.
Well, they all are. But when you get the blondes together, there's nothing wrong.
So I'm super excited because summer is around the corner. And for a lot of us,
that is, oh, my God, what am I going to wear on the beach?
Do you get a new swimsuit every year? Like, I don't, I'm old now.
(00:45):
So no, I don't. I can kind of transition to some different things.
However, some of the suits tend to fade and tend to kind of not be as fantastic,
which is something we're going to be talking a little bit.
Yeah. You know why? Because I buy, I buy shitty quality.
So I'm over that. And our guest today is going to help with that.
We have with us today, Megan Stevens of Megan May Miami.
(01:08):
Megan, thank you for being here from Florida.
Oh my goodness. Thanks for having me, guys. It's a pleasure to be here.
Can't wait to dive into everything.
But yes, definitely getting hot and humid here, here in Miami.
We have a lot to talk about because first of all, you're, I'm just going to
put it right out there at the beginning.
We're going to bump this up later too, but your designs, your swimsuit designs are gorgeous.
(01:34):
Beautiful. And I'm hoping that by the time it gets hot here,
I will be able to fit my ass into one of them.
So that is to be seen. Hang tight, everybody. I'll report back later.
But you are the founder and creative designer of Megan May Miami.
Yeah, a swimsuit among other things line but started with swimsuits,
(01:55):
which is cool because you're from Michigan where they get I don't know 186 feet of snow every year.
Oh, let's let's back this up a little bit.
How did the girl from Michigan, blue lips and all, find your way to Miami and
(02:16):
into the world of swimsuit design?
Yeah, exactly. And you're so right about the blue lips. That is one of the reasons
that I had to move to Miami. Absolutely.
It was because in Michigan growing up, I always actually had blue lips.
I was freezing in class, always wore those extra layers, was always running
from my car to the next place.
You'd never find me. I don't like to snowboard. I don't go skiing.
(02:39):
I am like the farthest from a Michigan person there is. Were you like eight
years old when you were like, fuck this, when I get older, I'm out?
Exactly. It was actually when I was 10 years old, we went on vacation to Orlando to Disney World.
And I remember this little girl holding on to her dad's pant leg.
And I was talking to her. I was eight as well.
And I was like, where are you from? She's like, I live here. I'm like, what?
(03:02):
You can live in Orlando? I'm like, I'm in. I'm in. Where do I sign up?
Exactly. So I went for vacation there.
But obviously, from that moment on, I knew I was going to move to Florida and
Orlando specifically was where I ended up going to college. Funny enough.
So did you, did you apply to any colleges in cold weather states?
(03:24):
I didn't. Well, actually I did one year at, it's called Saginaw Valley State University.
So I did one year there. As soon
as I could get out, I did. And I moved to Florida and never looked back.
I love that. I love that. So let's talk about when you decided,
like, when was it, hey, let's start a swimwear line. When did that come to be?
(03:45):
Yes. So when I moved to Florida, I've been here for about 10 years now.
And when I moved to Miami specifically is when I was doing more swimwear modeling.
There's a lot of opportunity down here. That's another reason why I moved to
Florida. I just feel like I'm from a small town.
And yes, I love going back home for Christmas, Thanksgiving,
the holidays, but I just couldn't be there long term.
(04:08):
So there's a lot of opportunity in Miami. And one of those was through modeling.
So I moved down here, did promotional modeling. I did events at trade shows
and some of that was swimwear.
So with that, there was a lot of, I tried on a lot of swimwear, a lot of pieces.
And I felt that there was something sort of missing.
(04:30):
And I wanted to go into that a little bit later. I didn't know how much you
guys wanted me to talk about up front. Oh, we want to go all in now.
Let's open the kimono. Let's go. So let's discuss my issues with faded swimwear
and shitty quality. Let's let's go.
Yeah. Yeah. So trying on a lot of these swimsuits, I mean, there's a ton.
(04:51):
And the fact of the matter is a lot of them are made overseas where the quality
control just isn't there.
A lot of them sadly are in sweatshops, like child labor, the things that like
people don't want to talk about.
And so that's some of the things I found. And also the sizing was just off.
I would say it's a small, but it fit like a large or something like that.
You just never knew what you were are going to get.
(05:13):
I always find it the other way around, by the way. Yeah.
In case anybody's wondering, I've never found a small that fits like a large.
It's generally a large that fits like a small, but cool, cool, cool. I love it. Yeah.
So trying on all these different swimsuits, I just felt like there was a gap
(05:33):
in the market where I could find something like, hey, why don't I create something
that I enjoy wearing that is sustainable,
that's healthy and good for the ocean and fits me right and isn't going to fade.
And it's called bleeding in the fashion world. The color will bleed onto other colors.
And I just didn't want that to be the case with my swimwear.
(05:54):
So I always loved to understand what it's like to actually have an idea,
to create a product, and then get it on shelves.
So the actual, you know, prototypes or versions of the suits,
like how many of them would you create before you'd have a final product that
you're like, this is the one?
Oh my goodness. There's, there's so much back and forth. Like people don't really
(06:17):
think about that whole process.
So that's a great question. It's like from actually getting it from an idea
in your head down on paper, that is the hardest part.
Like it seems like a lot of people want to start a business,
but how do you actually make it real?
As far as how many renditions we go through and iterations, I would say there's at least 50 to start.
(06:38):
Like that was in the very beginning. We had like 50 drawings where we had,
and then we would make tweaks.
You have to go through a process of the fitting on it's called a fit model,
but it really is just a, an industry industry standard sized model.
You fit it on a small, then you have to grade it to different sizing.
But yeah, there's a lot of back and forth. Something is off with the straps.
(07:01):
That's why a lot of our swimwear is adjustable, just because you don't know.
Everyone's body type is different. So yeah, there's a lot that goes into it
from the idea all the way to the finished product.
You have said that the time to develop a product was a shock to you when you started this process.
So one of the things you have coming up is Miami Swim Week fashion show at the
(07:26):
end of May, and you'll be appearing in the show there.
Like how far in advance this Miami Swim Week, it starts May 29th, 2024.
Are you like, is this, are you showing ideas that you had in 2022?
Like how far, how long is this? How long does this take? How early do you have to start?
(07:47):
Yeah. So something about me and my personality is I tend to be somewhat of a
last minute person where I could have all of the plans in the world,
like the perfect set plan but then i may just
change my mind last minute so that's actually
where we're at right now is we are we have
the ideas we have the overarching plan but we just settled on the collections
(08:11):
yesterday like literally yesterday we had a meeting so yeah you had three and
a half weeks i mean yeah yeah wrong i mean yeah it's not like it's next week
so you do you do have a little bit of leeway a little bit of time but the collections themselves stuff.
I mean, if you're, if you're talking about, you know, obviously creating the
line and it's taking, you know, 50 different versions of it to get right.
(08:32):
I mean, the stuff that you're planning on putting in the show,
you, you would have had to do maybe, you know, last year, you know, Q4 kind of stuff, right?
Yes. So those are, those are the actual pieces.
Like that's the swimsuit itself. Like the pattern you would call it, like that is set.
So we're good on the patterns, but the fabric is what I was like,
hold on, you guys, I don't want to come out with anything basic, anything boring.
(08:57):
Not that the stuff is boring, but
I wanted to wow people at Miami Swimming because the lights are hitting.
You want some kind of, without giving too much away, some sparkle, some bedazzle.
I'll hint a little bit of this, some floral and shimmery.
So we've been on the hunt for beautiful fabrics, but we ended up finding some in Spain.
(09:18):
And part of the brand is we're eco-friendly. So that's the challenge is finding
these gorgeous fabrics that we can also change the colors around.
We can scale it to different sizes, but also make it eco-friendly.
So it's been a mission, but we found our pieces.
So are you traveling internationally to go like touch and feel fabrics and like see what's up?
(09:39):
A lot of it actually comes just here. So yeah, it comes here.
We speak to different manufacturers and they ship samples.
We have the books that we look at and then we take the gorgeous colors that
we see and we draw it out with the fabrics and we're able to create our own,
creation out of it. Because we talked to a lot of women that are makers and
(10:00):
creators, and they work a lot in these different capacities with vendors overseas.
And it's hard to be a woman in these different spaces because a lot of other
countries don't really, I mean, first of all, you're an American woman, right?
So that's a whole nother, and you're a blonde woman on top of it, right?
So there's a lot of, you know, there are some roadblocks there.
(10:21):
So it's nice to hear that you're able to kind of, you know, overcome them to
be able to create the line.
And the sustainability factor, I think is really great that that's something
that you're thinking about as far as, you know, fabric goes,
because I don't know that a lot of creators are doing that.
Yeah, exactly. And something I'm really excited about is at Miami Swim Week.
Since we just launched the sun care line, we have two thirds of it launched.
(10:44):
We still have two more pieces or two more, I guess you call them bottles to come out.
What am I calling? I call everything pieces because it's swimwear,
but it's two more products we'll say.
So I'm excited to launch some of that at Miami Swim Week as well.
We want to give like the girls each a bottle to walk out with at the end.
Like when everyone does their little waterfall of everyone walking,
(11:04):
everyone's going to have a bottle.
So I'm excited because this sun caroline is an entirely new animal.
Yeah. Tell us a little about that because that seems like a very obvious extension.
I mean, you've got the swimsuits and the cover-ups and the surf tops and things
like that. And now you've taken it really to a different type of product with
(11:26):
the sun care, which is such a cool extension of your business.
So how did that come to be? And what can we expect in that line?
Yes. So you're right. It's a natural extension. And I would say sun care is my true passion.
Like skincare is really my true passion. I love taking care of my skin.
A little backstory is in high school, my grandmother got a tanning bed and being
(11:50):
in Michigan, it's obviously freezing.
I'm blue lips after school. I would literally go every day in high school,
my senior year and lay in the the tanning bed for 40 minutes and 40 minutes.
It was a 20 minute max. I did it twice. Not good.
Horrible. Oh my God. Holy moly. Yes. For yeah. So not great.
(12:12):
Definitely eventually turned tan, but didn't stay for long.
And what's so crazy looking back at that as I'm like, why did I do that to myself?
You wear sweatshirts anyway.
It's like, Ooh, roll up the sleeves and see a little tan for a second.
We didn't know what we didn't know. right exactly so
like fast forward to today i am protecting my
skin ever since i was 20 and moved to florida i wore sunscreen
(12:34):
and always protected my face i wear a hat outside you won't catch me outside
without a hat and unless i'm like running somewhere really quickly but yeah
i just really think sun protection is important especially like not no not really
thinking about it in high school just we have to put our skin first it's we
it's attached to us our entire lives so,
(12:54):
So, yeah, we don't we don't think about it till we get older, usually.
And, you know, or we have problems, which is Megan's not there yet.
She's not. No, Megan is not there yet. But, you know, we my aunt is like 70
and she's like Christy Brinkley gorgeous.
And she was always like, you need to wear the sunscreen.
So I always had the sunscreen concept in the back of my head.
(13:15):
But and even with my girls, like I try to get them to wear it.
But you don't until you get older and you start to really know what's going
on with your skin. And so as far as like the two different things,
which one was harder to kind of get going with?
I mean, just from a process standpoint,
like was the skincare part more challenging than the swimwear line?
No, the swimwear is much more challenging because finding the fabric,
(13:37):
finding the eco-friendly fabric on top of it, the sizing and the straps, the different shapes,
like the patterns, like the different butt shapes that it has ruching.
Everything's double-sided, so it's not thin and cheap looking.
It's thick and luxurious.
And I'm very picky. The sun care, as far as that goes, we know the ingredients
(14:02):
that we want in it. We know what we definitely want it to have.
It has skin nourishing ingredients. It's hydrating for the skin.
It has vitamin C, vitamin E. It's actually anti-aging, which is my favorite part.
So I knew the key ingredients that I wanted in it.
So that was a more straight and narrow shot.
Of course, there was some back and forth, but it was a lot easier because I
(14:23):
knew exactly what I wanted versus fashion's an art form.
Fashion's more creative and not everyone's going to love everything you put
out too, mind you. So it's definitely, it takes a lot more in that process.
Something that is hard sometimes because everyone has an opinion about everything.
One of the questions we always love to ask is like, so your product,
(14:46):
you get it, you've got it in hand, and now you're going to go sell it to the world.
How have you been successful with getting your brand out into orbit?
Oh, yes. So I would say number one is doing these shows starting with Miami Swim Week.
It's like a holiday week here. It's like Christmas, but for Miami.
So these shows, I would say, have been the number one. We actually did six shows
(15:11):
last year, which was very exciting.
Yes, we went from Miami. We went up to New York twice.
We did New York Fashion Week, New York Swim Week, Hamptons. We went to the Hamptons. That was cool.
So I would say doing the fashion shows, getting content from the shows.
Obviously, social media is a really big one.
We like to work with affiliates and give them an incentive to talk about the brand as well.
(15:35):
So they get a code. So it's a process. It's not an overnight night thing.
We're still, you know, doing more shows this year. But that's that's been the
main way I would say is the shows.
And is it hard to go? I mean, because you got to bring everything you got to
manage all the talent do I mean, is that part?
I mean, I've never put on a fashion show in that way. Is it hard?
Yeah, so we have we have a small team. So it's not just me just sewing suits and things like that.
(16:01):
So we have a team and we have one of she's like my second Second mother,
I would say Joanne, she is in a shipping department and she is take she takes
care of like the numbers of everything.
So she helps bring everything down, organize everything. She's much more organized in that sense.
I'm kind of the creative mind of it. But we have a team.
(16:21):
We have multiple I would say there's how many if I would count,
there's probably six of us at Miami Swim Week that help get the girls dressed
kind of create the order.
So it's a lot. It's a lot. It takes an army. It takes a team of hardworking people, definitely.
Then somebody shooting the content from behind the scenes as well. So a lot goes into it.
(16:41):
Is there any bullshit behind the scenes? Is there any drama?
I always love that one. Oh, yeah.
I gotta assume there's like- Is there tea behind the scenes that we should know about?
Oh, yeah. The tea behind the scenes. I love it. Yeah. Let's think. Let's think.
As far as for me last year, I did find it odd.
I don't want to- Obviously, I'm not going to say the person's name.
(17:03):
I do find it odd some of the people that they let into the dressing rooms were
with a different show this year, so I don't want to say certain names.
But anyway, last year, they were letting these, in my opinion,
odd people into where girls are literally changing with video cameras.
And they are, in my opinion, acting like a reporter.
(17:25):
And they're walking up to people in your face and like, hey,
hey, Megan May, can you tell us about your line?
But it's too close for comfort almost. most like, wait, how did you get back here?
And like the girls changing.
I think that's, that's a little too much for me.
That can be very uncomfortable. And a lot of these girls are young too.
(17:46):
And so that's like, I mean, that's not normal.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we want to make sure that we have like changing tents
because there's some people just like somehow get back there.
And some girls are literally changing like out in the open.
And I just think there's a line that's kind of crossed when these people are
roaming around back there.
(18:08):
I want to take a little shift in this discussion. You have a background in sport and exercise science.
You have a background as a personal trainer. You were a swimsuit model yourself
before you decided to launch your own line and thankful you did.
But honestly, you could put yourself in a garbage bag and look gorgeous. And there's such a...
(18:31):
Lack of confidence level with a lot of women, especially when it comes to swimwear, right?
Like we live in this world now where social media is everywhere and who knows
what's real and what's not on social media.
We all know that a lot of it is airbrushed and doctored and posed right and
this and that and whatever.
And the perfection is not attainable, but we tend to see it every day,
(18:56):
which I think makes people even feel worse about the way they look.
So you have now stepped into to design a line, that is probably one of the most
difficult things for a woman, an average woman to put on.
So what kind of thought process goes into the psyche of your customers in helping
them have that confidence to be able to walk out on the beach and wear your
(19:17):
amazing, beautiful suits?
Yes. So another one of my passions is, I'm going to mention that I actually
have three YouTube channels.
And I'll get into that in a minute. But one of them is about the inner world,
the psyche, the mindset of loving yourself from the inside out.
(19:38):
So I myself designed these suits with an inscription on the inside of all of them.
And I'll get deeper in a moment. But I'll start with the swimwear because that's
that's where we're at right now.
So inside of all the suits, there is is an inscription.
And I kind of like to see it as a fortune cookie almost. But each one is like
a mantra or a quote that are handpicked by me.
(20:01):
Like some are create your reality, grateful from the start, things like that,
that help remind the person to love themselves from the inside out.
But I want to take that a step further because like you said,
it's like it's in our faces every day where people have this pressure to be
absolutely perfect, to be on point.
And I feel that pressure myself every day. I put that pressure on myself.
(20:24):
So what I want to venture out to in the future even is I want to host retreats for women.
That is okay, again, taking a step backwards. I actually have my certification
from London Hypnosis Academy for hypnosis.
And I want to take girls into kind of like an inner world retreat where they
(20:45):
would come to Miami, maybe I'll start on zoom.
This is still like, again, a thought process that I have, but everything starts with an idea, right?
So I want to have girls come to a retreat and really kind of show them how to
love themselves from the inside out because there's too much of the rah,
rah, just rah, rah, right?
Like somehow I want, like, there's actually a process.
(21:08):
And one of the books I'm reading right now is how it's called how to the secrets
of being happy. And it's about like the main point of it so far is providing people with choice and,
And sometimes we feel that we wake up and these thoughts just come to us and
like, oh, maybe people don't think they're pretty or they don't think they're
worthy or they're not, they're too much of this or not enough of that.
(21:30):
It's this loud noise, especially with the social media that we live in nowadays.
Like I can't even go on TikTok. I literally have to close my eyes and tell I'm
on my page because it's flashing with advertisements,
with loud noises, with repetitive, in my opinion, it's kind of scary,
repetitive, like, bad music, even the music industry is corrupt,
(21:52):
in my opinion, like, we can if you want juice, like we can talk about all that.
Horrible, it's evil, it is bad. And so it's about to be banned, apparently.
Hope it is like, if we're talking freely, I
honestly hope it is I think it is a it's obviously
we we need social media to spread a
(22:15):
positive message but if there is say repetitive
say it's a song and say it has like
bad words in it or just like negative meaning to it that girl is like editing
her video with that song playing over and over because it doesn't stop so you
turn the music down and so it's just it's what i'm trying to say is everyone like you have to
(22:40):
stand guard at the door of your mind or else anything can just come in there from what you see,
from what you hear, from what you're feeling.
Even when I turned on TikTok, again, that's what I'm saying.
I have to close my eyes because I actually saw something scary.
It was an advertisement. I'm like, I didn't want to see that image.
So you have to stand guard and protect your thoughts, protect your mind.
(23:01):
And with that, you can hardwire. It's like a computer.
We need to to update our computer software. We need to update our mind software every now and again.
We update our phones all the time, but our minds need that update.
I think for our youth, you know, because we're kind of, you know,
we, we know enough to go, okay, like I need to turn this off.
(23:24):
I need to go to bed. I need to do we know enough for that?
I don't know that we do. I think we know better. You know, we as 40 and 50 year
old women, we should know better.
But for the young girls, it's a total different playing field.
I mean, my daughter's 13 and we've, you know, been able to not have social media in the house.
(23:45):
And I feel like I am losing the battle, but I will hold the line as long as I can.
And my mindset is more like when you're emotionally able to handle like the
things that are going to come at you, then we can have this discussion,
but I don't feel like you're ready.
But going more back into, you know, the body image conversation,
which we haven't had in a while, Stace, but here we go. We're back.
(24:05):
I mean, we've got the perfect consult here. You know, it is going back to what you're saying about,
you know, kind of bringing in this whole approach to the way that women feel
about themselves is something I think Megan is so incredible about when you're
designing and you're thinking about those mantras or those things that can help
(24:26):
a woman feel better about herself.
Because we all know like some days we just wake up and we feel like we don't
feel very good about ourselves.
And that's because the things we see are the things we hear.
And it's, it's an ongoing battle. all.
Yeah. So I would say it's starting with that, starting with being aware of what
(24:46):
we are consuming on a day-to-day basis of like, what are we watching?
What are we reading? What are we listening to?
Starting with that, that will help kind of build a foundation,
like a solid foundation of knowing who we are, that no matter what we see or
no matter what somebody tells us who they think we are at our deepest level,
(25:09):
at our foundation, at our core, we will know who we are.
And it's not easy, but that is the goal. And that's what I would love for women is to know that.
Start with knowing who you are first. Become aware of who you are.
And I like to say, instead of finding yourself, I really believe in creating yourself.
We get to decide who we are. we get
(25:32):
to decide not not your the outside world
not somebody that's commenting on something on your
women pay attention to that enough though even even women
that that do know better you know that they don't they don't really truly understand
you know that they have that directive that they can they can make those decisions
i it's such a it's like i feel like it's a whole nother episode i know i just
(25:55):
yeah we went deep but this is good and and to think about that your designs coming
out of your mind and your pen to paper are impacting in a positive way that
women feel about themselves.
And I know this sounds trivial, but like this is the whole hot girl summer thing.
It's a thing and it's a big deal.
And so to be able to design something that women can feel good in and sort of
(26:19):
even give them a foundation of creating themselves, as you say,
that's got to be a pretty cool thing to go to sleep with at night.
Yes, thank you. And that is also why I'm excited too with the,
what we have at Miami Swim Loop.
We have a lot of new styles coming out that I'm really looking forward for everyone to see.
When are those going to be available to the consumer?
(26:40):
That would be, we are in, it probably would be towards middle summer because
we're just debuting that.
So it'd be more towards July, but Miami Swim Week is June 1st.
So we'll have a few weeks after that to get everything in inventory.
Okay. Asking for a friend, what is the design top that you have that is best
(27:01):
for a woman with big boobs?
First thing that comes to mind is ambition. That has underwire,
so it feels like they're more supported.
Also passionate. That is the style. I'd like to do that one.
Yeah, passionate. I would say passionate because you can wrap it different ways.
(27:22):
And so you can have it tighter or looser depending.
And it has kind of like a thicker band at the bottom. So So you just feel more held up and supported.
I love it. Where can we find these wonderful designs? Tell our listeners where to find you.
Yes, yes. You can find all of these designs on MeganMayMiami.com.
And I know there's Megan's, it's so many different ways to spell it,
(27:45):
but it's N-E-G-A-N-M-A-E Miami.com.
And that's the same for Instagram as well. And my personal is MeganMayStevens.
So that is the personal Instagram.
I love it. We're going to tag all of your different places where our folks can
find you in our show notes.
Megan, you are one to keep an eye on. We weren't wrong when we started off saying
(28:08):
the blondes are bringing it today.
And we are definitely excited to see this show in Miami and what you come up
with. You are just an incredible woman doing incredible things.
So thank you so much for sharing this. And we hope that everybody gets out there
this week and is inspired.
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