Standard Culture

Tori Praver, 2011 Collection

Tori Praver is the real deal. Surf chick raised in Maui, Hawaii. This year she visits Miami Swim week with her 2011 Cruise Collection in hand, inspired by Nirvana… not the full Seattle type, but more like a Balinese Zen type of Nirvana, sprinkled in with a little bit of 90s grungy florals. We took a moment to speak to Tori about her new collection, her inspirations, and what she really wants to do in the next 5 minutes. 

(Model Wearing Tori Praver’s 2011 Collection)

The Standard: Why did you choose to be a designer and why bathing suits of all things?

I grew up in Hawaii. I’m from the beach culture, so the ocean is my life and my passion. It’s second nature to me. My passion for swimwear came natural to me as a kid. I had drawers full of bikinis. It was always something I wanted to do, and kind of became real when I started doing Sports Illustrated. The editor inspired me and encouraged me to get it started, and my first collection was 3 yers ago. The first year, it was actually featured in Sport Illustrated! That was a really nice push for the start of things.

Can you tell us about the patterns, color palette, and materials you’ve chosen for this collection?

For this collection I added a bunch of new prints, like the batik print which I was inspired by my travels to Bali. I do this in a few different color ways. I have a few different prints, but generally, most of my suits are ocean inspired. I have sea greens and sand colors. I carried over a lot of my signature ruching, which makes the suit fit very well. I introduced hardware into this collection like gold zippers and different clasps and thing like tha

There is also the mint batik with black. Then there is probably one of my most popular prints, the floral print. The Betty bando which I think is one of the most biggest trends this season with the 50’s pin up inspired high waist bottoms and bando tops. Floral is just really nice because it kind of goes with any different color you can mix and matc

All my suits are sold separately. So you can put solid colors with the prints. This allows you to be creative and put together your own suit.

Where do u see the line 5 yrs from now?

I hope to keep growing with it. My ultimate goal is to collaborate with the Surf Rider Foundation. I want to design a suit specifically for them where all the proceeds goes to their charity that supports clean waters. I’m in the process of finding a sustainable fabric and eco friendly swimwear fabric that works well in the ocean. It’s been hard, but that’s my goal. Hopefully that will happen soon.

What’s next?

As soon as I get a free second I’m going to try and get in the ocean. I’ve been here all week and haven’t had a second to myself to go swimming and feel the Atlantic ocean in Miami so thats my ultimate goal.

(Swimwear Designer Tori Praver in one of her own Designs)