Best NZ Swimwear Brands: Where Kiwis Shop for Togs

New Zealand made swimwear long before it bought it in

An Australian shopper might call them bathers or swimmers; a New Zealander packs togs, and often buys them from a local label. The short list is Moontide for fit and support, Lonely for design, and Covertogs if you want a suit that is still made in New Zealand. Behind them is a long local history. The New Zealand Fashion Museum traces it from wool swimsuits made by the country's knitting mills in the early 1900s to labels that "successfully took New Zealand style to the world" in the 1970s and 1980s.

This guide covers what each brand offers, what the museum's history says about them, and where the togs are made today.

Moontide: fit-focused, since 1980

Moontide is the best-known New Zealand swimwear name. Its own site says it "launched its very first collection in Auckland, New Zealand for the summer of 1980", and describes the label as "the brainchild of a young designer from Wellington." The New Zealand Fashion Museum credits the founding to Tony Hart, and says the brand "championed the beach-loving New Zealand lifestyle using stylised Māori motifs and South Pacific colours" in its early prints.

The museum lists the brand's overseas success: Moontide "crossed the ditch in 1984", was "one of the top five swimwear labels in Australia" by 1990, and was sold in Harvey Nichols and Harrods in the UK. British Underlines magazine named it the best swimwear range in 1989 and 1990.

What Moontide offers today, from its own site:

• Fit: "Swimwear engineered to fit and hold", with "True cup sizing A–G" and sizes 8 to 20. It has dedicated ranges for tummy control and DD+ busts.
• Fabric: "Our sustainable swimwear fabrics use at least 70% recycled yarns."
• Delivery and returns: dispatched from its Auckland warehouse; NZ$10 delivery in New Zealand, or free over NZ$200; easy returns within 30 days.
• Sister brand: Piha Swimwear, for "Bold prints and easy fits".

Moontide is designed in New Zealand, but the museum notes it is now "produced in China and sold in 50 countries."

Lonely: design-led, swimwear since 2014

Lonely comes from fashion rather than swimwear. The museum records that it "began as clothing label Lonely Hearts in 2003", launched Lonely Lingerie in 2009, and added swimwear in 2014, "following the signature long lines, straps and cut-outs seen in the lingerie."

Designer Helene Morris "produces two swimwear collections a year which are manufactured in China," according to the museum, which also credits her partner Steve Ferguson with the brand's social media strategy and an Instagram following of over 300,000 at the time it was written. Lonely is the label to look at if you want a swimsuit that reads as fashion as much as beachwear.

Covertogs: still made in New Zealand

If "made in New Zealand" matters to you, Covertogs is the clear choice here. Its site says Covertogs are "100% New Zealand designed, made and delivered", and that its swimsuits are "sun safe (UPF Rating 50+)" and offer "stylish cover."

The museum explains the gap Covertogs fills. Founder Karen Newton "saw a gap in the market for swimwear for women who don't feel comfortable in a regular bathing suit but still want to be active at the beach and in the water." It also notes how rare local production has become: "With almost all swimwear manufacturing now having moved off shore," Covertogs considers itself lucky to have found "an ex-Moontide machinist" with the skills to make its suits in New Zealand.

The history behind New Zealand togs

The museum's account shows how large the local industry once was.

Wool came first. Knitting mills such as Lane Walker Rudkin, Roslyn and Manawatu Knitting Mills "made swimsuits for men and women for the first half of the 20th century." Lane Walker Rudkin, the company behind the Canterbury brand, was founded in 1904 and made its first knitted wool swimsuits by 1910. Knitted wool "was the material of choice until the 1940s when elastic fibres became more accessible."

Early swimsuits were modest. The mills turned to swimwear partly because demand for wool clothing was seasonal, and swimming was a new trend after the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. The museum describes the first men's suits as looking "like long john underwear", made in black "to reveal as little as possible". For women, a knitted tunic with knee-length shorts, known as the Canadian, became popular.

The label mattered from the start. Logos were embroidered or stitched on the outside of the suit. The museum lists examples from as early as 1920: the Jantzen "diving girl" with its slogan "The Suit That Changed Bathing to Swimming", Speedo's "Speed on in your Speedos", the green fern of Canterbury's Pacific brand, and the Roslyn label with a swimmer riding a seagull.

Famous brands were made locally under licence. Manawatu Knitting Mills made Speedo under licence in the 1930s. Jantzen was made in Tawa, and Cole of California in Auckland. Holeproof Industries, which opened in Auckland in 1938, made the Rose Marie Reid label. Lane Walker Rudkin later bought the licences for Mabs of Hollywood, Catalina and Speedo. In 1961, Dutch immigrant designer Frank Carpay added a range of Pacific-inspired beachwear printed on towelling.

Local labels went global. Expozay, started in Tauranga in 1976 by Judy and Tony Alvos, was selling into Australia by 1978 and had some 900 accounts across the UK, Japan and North America a decade later. It won a New Zealand Export Award in 1981. Moontide followed from 1980.

Then production moved offshore. Jennifer Dean, a 1960 bikini label sold from Vulcan Lane in Auckland, was sold in 1990 and continues "with manufacturing off shore." Today the museum describes "almost all swimwear manufacturing" as having left New Zealand.

How to choose

Swimwear sizes rarely carry across brands, so use each label's own size guide; Moontide and Covertogs both publish one. For independent advice on shopping and returns in New Zealand, Consumer NZ is the country's consumer organisation.

Where to shop

All three brands sell online through their own sites, which show current ranges, sizes and delivery terms. For training swimwear that has to survive chlorine, see our guide to chlorine-resistant togs for lap swimming, and for children, our guide to girls' togs in New Zealand.

If the word itself brought you here, what does togs mean explains how "togs" came to mean swimwear in New Zealand, Ireland and Queensland. For the Australian premium labels that many New Zealand shoppers weigh against the local ones, see Seafolly vs Zimmermann.

References

• New Zealand Fashion Museum: Making swimwear in New Zealand 1915-2015
• Moontide
• Lonely
• Covertogs
• Consumer NZ
• Speedo Australia