We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jaimie Beebe. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jaimie below.

Jaimie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

I get asked a lot how I came up with the name “The Boyfriend Bikini” for my new bikini company… and the story has some history. There’s a saying about how women level up after a horrible relationship ends; they travel more, get hotter, make more money, start new businesses, and fall in love with someone better. Well, I took that very literally!
I ended an extremely toxic and abusive relationship right before the pandemic hit and it was the best thing I ever did. That relationship was destroying who I was and completely holding me back from my potential. So, once I got away from that, all the good things started falling perfectly into place. My true crime podcast “Strictly Stalking” grew exponentially, I started traveling the world nonstop, and I learned to love and believe in myself again.
Because I often travel to tropical places, I consider myself quite the bikini connoisseur and usually buy a new bikini every place I go. Owning a bikini company has always been on my bucket-list, so in my glow up I decided now is my time to shine.
I wanted the name of my business to reflect my personal growth, healing from that traumatic relationship, reclaiming my life, finding my happiness, being my true self, and being boss AF! I want women to know that they can ask that guy out, apply for that job or promotion, take extra vacation days, travel solo around the world, and wear that tiny bikini with confidence!
After taking a lot of time for myself to learn and grow, I realized that the actions of one bad guy doesn’t mean all men are bad, so I wanted to acknowledge that there’ve been some really amazing men in my life.
To do that, each color/style of bikini is named after a man that made a positive impact in my life, or my friend’s lives, or even in the world. Each bikini will come with a name and story about that person and why the bikini is named after them (no last names will be used haha)!
Lastly, a portion of sales will go to helping domestic violence survivors through several of my favorite charities.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Growing up in the Midwest I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life! All I knew was that I didn’t want to work in an office, or be tied down to a job that I felt forced to work each day – and I wanted to travel the world. I got a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography from Ohio University, and then went on to get a Master’s Degree in Music Management from Columbia College Chicago… but didn’t really want to work in either of those fields.
I made my way out to Los Angeles and ended up working in tv/film production. I managed a boutique production company and learned all the jobs, discovering along the way that I loved casting – and I had an eye for it. For the next 10 years I built up my name as a Casting Director, working with amazing actors and putting out a lot of content that I’m really proud of.
When the pandemic hit, production was sidelined so I grew my true crime podcast, “Strictly Stalking” and it paid off! “Strictly Stalking” is used as a platform for stalking survivors to tell their stories to create awareness of this often underreported crime and help others in knowing that they are not alone. I’m extremely proud of the way my podcast has helped so many people get the help they need.
During this time I’ve also been traveling through the world solo, being able to work remotely with the podcast has opened up more travel opportunities than I thought possible. I often travel to tropical locations and love being on the beach. One of my favorite things to do when I travel is shop for a new bikini and it’s always been on my bucket-list to design my own… so one day I just did it! I found a fashion designer out of Paris that helped me put my designs on paper, then a manufacturer out of Bali that made my designs tangible, and The Boyfriend Bikini became a reality.
My day to day now consists of casting new shows, working on “Strictly Stalking”, and selling bikinis! I’ve also started working on a second podcast and a book. I travel consistently getting on at least one flight a month, and spend a lot of time with my golden retriever named Cabo.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

My decision to start a bikini company was a no brainer because I love wearing bikinis… but I didn’t know anything at all about fashion, patterns, sizing, materials, manufacturing, or even selling them! Luckily, one thing about me is that when I want something I don’t give up. So I got online and started reading and learning everything I could and slowly put all the pieces into place.
I found a fashion designer living in Paris who I felt really understood my vision and what I wanted the first bikini design to look like. She was awesome in teaching me about the fashion industry while we hammered out the details of the design.
Once I had the tech pack (pattern) ready to go, I made a huge spreadsheet of bikini manufacturers from around the world that I had found and narrowed down by reading reviews and talking to other business owners that had worked with them.
I reached out to about 10 different companies from that list, eventually narrowing it down to 3 manufacturers that I ordered samples from. One was in Brazil, and 2 from Indonesia.
Once I got the samples, it was easy to see that the one from Bali stood out with the quality of work as well as the materials they used.
One of the biggest things I learned from this is to pay attention to details, ask a lot of questions, and hire the right people. There was a time in my life that I wouldn’t have asked enough questions because I didn’t want people to think I didn’t know what I was doing – but hey, I really didn’t know what I was doing! So this was a complete learning curve and to get over that I made sure I had a team around me that 100% knew what they were doing so I could learn from them.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like a lot of people, the pandemic was life altering in every way. I had just ended a terrible relationship, production and my job was shut down, I was living alone for the first time in a long time, and the world was suddenly a really scary place. There were definitely a few times in those first couple weeks that the only reason I got out of bed was to take care of my dogs, but pretty quickly I saw the shutdown as time to heal and grow. I started taking time to do things that made me happy; reading, writing, listening to music, creating art, hiking, spending time outside, being alone, laughing, smiling, sleeping, and eating healthy. Soon new ideas started flowing, I became much more creative, and my confidence shot up.
At the same time, I was working around the clock on my true crime podcast, “Strictly Stalking” and it was growing exponentially, which opened a lot more doors for me both professionally and personally.
When the restrictions started lifting, I traveled around the world solo. I met knew people, learned about different cultures, and saw how strong and resilient I had become.

Through time, when the world went back to the “new normal”, I did too. But now my new normal includes the confidence of knowing I can get through anything and come out on top. Being alone through the pandemic I realized that there was no one to tell me I can’t do something or I’m not good enough – so I’m giving all my ideas and businesses a try and if something fails I’ll just learn and keep going!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theboyfriendbikini.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theboyfriendbikini/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBoyfriendBikini/