Cult Gaia—Instagram’s Favorite Bag Brand—Launches a Swim Collection

Growing up in Los Angeles, Cult Gaia’s Jasmin Larian has always had one foot in Hollywood and the other dipped in the pool, so it comes as no surprise that her first foray into resort draws from both. “I was inspired by the idea of these sensual Italian women of the 1960s,” she says of the brand’s debut resort and swim collections, which launch this week. “What if you took Monica Vitti and transported her to Slim Aarons’s Palm Springs with some of the psychedelia of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point?”

Known for her sculptural accessories—if you aren’t familiar with the line’s signature Ark bag, you must not be on Instagram—Larian has always taken her design cues from organic shapes like shells, pebbles, the sun, and, of course, the moon, which inspired the Ark bag’s silhouette. When it came to designing a collection of poolside pieces, she once again went back to nature. “Before I choose a fabric, I lay it out under the sun. If it transforms when the light hits it, I know it’s a winner,” she says. “Everything is made to move and be magnified under sunlight while the sky provides a backdrop for all of our pieces.”

The swimwear, in rich hues of sage, clay, sky, and a ’60s-inspired graphic print, contrasts minimal, modern cuts with sculptural details like hammered brass rings, acrylic straps, and amorphous tortoiseshell hardware modeled on found rocks so the shape is slightly imperfect: “It keeps it from being overdone.” Larian says. The asymmetric one-pieces and barely there bikinis are meant to be layered under the resort collection’s bold architectural pieces and exaggerated shapes, many of which echo the objet d'art–ish accessories. Dresses made of macrame’d wooden bars and billowing feathers; blouses in pleated poly silk with half-moon-shaped sleeves; and pastel blue pants, skirts, and jumpsuits with wrapped ball trim are all designed to look as good on the hanger as the bags do on your coffee table.

“The pieces are all meant to be forms of art,” says Larian. “If someone doesn’t stop you on street to ask what you are wearing, it’s not meant to be part of Cult Gaia.”