Redefining swimwear with purpose, power and product design
The luxury swimwear industry is undergoing a major shift as more women seek functional swimwear that is beautiful, performance-ready and built for real movement. Leading this evolution is designer and entrepreneur Laura M. Mackay, founder and CEO of Mina™ Swimwear and featured guest on The Rhonda Swan Show. Mina™ introduces a new standard in luxury athletic swimwear, offering suits that allow women to swim, dive, train and move freely without sacrificing artistry or elegance. With rising demand for athletic swimwear for active women, Mackay is positioning Mina™ as the next category-defining brand in functional luxury.
Mina™ was created in response to a problem most women already recognize. Many luxury suits look beautiful but are not designed for real swimming, while many athletic suits sacrifice elegance for performance. Mackay observed this gap and approached it with the mindset of a Silicon Valley product designer, bringing years of expertise in user-centered design into the world of luxury swimwear. Her philosophy is rooted in product design. Identify the real user need. Test it in real conditions. Iterate with intention. Never compromise on the experience.
For years, Mackay has swum daily in both the ocean and the pool, wearing and testing every prototype she designs. She has performed flip turns, sprints, dives and open water races in these suits, adjusting strap placement, fabric feel and movement lines until each piece offers both comfort and performance. Mina™ uses premium high-quality fabrics sourced from leading textile mills, combined with construction techniques inspired by performance disciplines such as dance and figure skating, where mesh precision lines and architectural shaping create beauty and strength at once. This approach results in luxury swimwear that supports the body lifts where needed and moves as fluidly as the athlete wearing it.
The name Mina™ carries a deeply meaningful personal history. Mackay named the brand after her grandmother, a gifted designer who never had the opportunity to pursue her talents professionally. For Mackay, choosing Mina™ as the brand name was an act of reclamation and purpose. Mina™ operates as a for-profit, for-good company committed to supporting UNICEF in its initiative to end child marriage in 12 countries. In this way, every suit becomes part of a global movement advancing empowerment, autonomy and opportunity for girls.
Mina™ is also wearable art. Mackay is a painter with exhibitions in respected galleries in Laguna Beach and San Francisco, and several Mina™ suits feature prints taken directly from her original paintings. This fusion of fine art and functional design makes Mina™ one of the few swimwear collections where the founder is simultaneously the artist, designer and athlete behind the brand.
Mackay’s long-term vision extends well beyond traditional swimwear. She sees Mina™ evolving into a leading luxury athletic brand with categories for open water performance suits, competitive training suits and eventually designs that meet advanced athletic standards. She wants Mina™ to become for swimming what other major brands have become for yoga and fitness, an invitation into the sport that begins with a product women feel confident and powerful wearing. Her view is simple and compelling. Swimming is one of the most effective forms of fitness in the world, and Mina™ can help women of all levels embrace that strength.
Her personal story adds depth to the brand’s purpose. Growing up in Detroit with three older brothers, Mackay developed a sense of resilience, creativity and grit. She experienced significant health challenges, including a misdiagnosed thyroid condition and a heart rhythm disorder that caused repeated hospitalizations. Swimming was once the activity she struggled with most. After regaining her health and undergoing corrective heart surgery, she returned to the water with renewed passion, completing major open water events and long-distance swims. Reclaiming her athletic identity inspired her to help women reclaim movement confidence and power.
Mackay built Mina™ entirely through personal funding to preserve sovereignty over her creative and mission-driven vision. After seeing how investor-funded brands can lose autonomy, she chose independence over traditional financing. Mina™ is private by intention, with plans for future profit sharing among team members rather than outside shareholders. This structure allows Mackay to maintain the integrity of her for-profit model while innovating without compromise.
Her collaboration process reflects the same thoughtful and disciplined approach. Mackay partnered with industry experts known for high-level design and performance craftsmanship, blending Silicon Valley product methodology with deep apparel expertise. Mackay and the consultant shared a strong foundation in drawing and communicated extensively through sketching, using visual collaboration to refine stitch work, proportions and measurements. Production was executed with two manufacturers: a Los Angeles-based team experienced in luxury and performance-driven apparel, and a Bali-based manufacturer with a long-standing legacy in swimwear.
Prototypes were refined through an iterative process involving sketch-based recalibration and extensive real-world testing. As a designer CEO, Mackay views feedback as a strategic advantage, believing that honesty, iteration and precision are essential to creating performance swimwear women can truly trust.
Mina™’s values of sovereignty, innovation and decisive action define every product and business decision. Sovereignty shows in the freedom the suits give women to move. Innovation appears in the strategic cuts, supportive mesh and performance-driven construction. Decisive action reflects Mackay’s leadership from creative choices to manufacturing to her philanthropic commitment.
As she shared on The Rhonda Swan Show, Mina™ exists to help women feel free in the water, free to move, free to swim and free to do what could not be done before. Her mission is clear and powerful. Redefine functional luxury and empower women to step boldly into beauty, strength and motion.
Mina™ swimwear is available now through Mina™ Swimwear, with plans to introduce the collection to select luxury retailers and boutique partners. This marks the beginning of what Mackay envisions as an international movement at the intersection of art, athletic performance, empowerment and social impact.
Mina™ is not just swimwear. It is sovereignty in fabric innovation, in form and power in motion. It is the future of functional luxury rooted in legacy purpose and the freedom to move.
About The Rhonda Swan Show
The Rhonda Swan Show Wake Up New York City Edition and now The Rhonda Swan Show Wake Up SoCal is a global stage for founders, creators and visionaries who turn courage into companies and values into value. Hosted by Rhonda Swan, CEO of Unstoppable Branding Agency, the series blends street-level energy with boardroom insight to reveal the people and principles behind tomorrow’s category leaders. Each episode closes the gap between inspiration and action, reminding audiences that remarkable brands are built by ordinary people who choose to keep going.
Members of the editorial and news staff of USA TODAY Network were not involved in the creation of this content.
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