Miami Swim Week has been one of the most integral parts of growing our business in the last 12 years. Founder, designer, and creative director Oleema Miller starts conceptualizing, preparing, and designing the new collection a year in advance. This process is private, intimate and held near and dear to Oleema’s heart. Miami Swim Week has marked the unearthing and debut of MIKOH’s newest collections. As we are sad to miss our first ever, active Swim Week, we fondly reflect back on all the prior years in attendance. We’ve made countless amounts of memories and built new friendships that will last a lifetime. We’ve been hands on at every trade show (11 to be exact), executed 2 runway shows, and casted 58 models. We will miss the unique, Miami Swim Week experience but we are there in spirit.
We both love to travel and never stay in one place for too long. Miami is a solid central location to jet off to paradise for a detox trip post-Swim Week. Our tradition after Miami Swim Week is to go to the Bahamas for some major R & R. We also love to incorporate and snap photos of our new swimwear and ready-to-wear on our trip as a teaser to our MIKOH audience for what’s to come.
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After running around the city and hotel hopping all day, the party aspect of Miami is essentially a gathering of all your peers and fellow brands to get together and let loose. It’s a good chance to celebrate our peers’ new collections, share our successes, and exchange and recap stories from the hectic day we all just had. It’s important to be social in Miami and show support and uplift one another.
As Chinese-Americans we value diversity across all aspects of life. When it came to casting for our runway shows/collection presentations, diversity and inclusivity was a major priority. Miami is such a melting pot of different cultures and countries, and our shows represented our brand celebrating women of all shapes and sizes (from petite to curve) from all different types of cultures coming together. We have previously casted models from Brazil, Mexico, Europe, Russia, and Senegal. It’s also a bonus when the models who show up to castings are fans of the MIKOH brand.
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TRADESHOWS
When we first started going to Miami, the trade show presence was so much smaller than it is now. It was such an intimate group of brands. Young, like-minded female entrepreneurs just like us were starting up, networking and hustling all in one space. When I look back at how many different brands, trade shows, runway shows, events, and people we’ve gone through, it really reflects on how much the swim industry has grown & progressed.
We always look forward to being hands-on at the trade shows, whether it’s running to the hardware store for tools, the craft store for some last minute props, or personally meeting with buyers and editors. There’s a certain sense of accomplishment and pride that comes with introducing the MIKOH collection to fresh, new eyes. The positive response makes it all worth it.
We are so grateful to have gone to Miami to build our business and network for as long as we have
RUNWAY SHOWS
Every year we choose to do an event to debut the new collection. Our favorite memories from past Miami Swim Weeks are our runway shows and/or collection presentations. We love the process from start to finish and seeing everything come to fruition by creating concepts, choosing models, fittings, photography, music, invitations, etc. It’s so rewarding to see all our hard work come to real life, see our designs floating down the runway, and hear/see the audience’s reactions to each and every look that we style on the models. Teamwork makes dreamwork.
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