Expelled From School For Sketching, Vivi Rufino Built A Caribbean Sustainable Swimwear Brand
She got expelled from school for sketching, and built a Caribbean sustainable swimwear brand. Vivi Rufino could not afford new clothes at college, took her sketches to her aunt's sewing machine, and grew Freedom Ecowear into a beachwear label that now ships to over 30 countries, run with her partner David. I spent two days at Sol Luna Atelier with the two of them, and this is Vivi's origin story in her own words.
Vivi Rufino Fashion Designer Start Up Story
Before the bikinis she sells now, before the beachwear brand that now ships to over 30 countries, Vivi Rufino was a teenager getting thrown out of class for drawing dresses she was not supposed to be drawing.
We were sitting in Sol Luna Atelier, the open air workshop in the Dominican hills where she now designs Freedom Ecowear with her partner David, when she walked me back to where it started.
That refusal to sit still and behave is, in a strange way, the whole brand in one moment.
The thread that runs through her story is that the most aligned thing you ever build usually starts with what is already around you. A relative’s skill, a stranger’s sentence, the fabric at the local shop. So look around. Â
Across the two days I spent at the atelier, this part is hers in her own words. Freedom Ecowear has its own page in our clothes directory.
Is Fashion Designer For You?
The girl who got expelled for designing
The teachers could not control the distraction.
“When I was in high school, I got expelled because, during class, I would just sketch and design all these pieces,” Vivi said.
“And I got expelled because I was already distracting some of my classmates. They wanted to see what I was doing, and the teachers got tired of me. I got expelled for like two days.”
She did not stop, and we are grateful for that!
“When I came back, I did it again, just more like trying to hide it so they wouldn’t catch me,” she said.
“The thing is, in that moment, I realized I wanted to study fashion design. And then that’s what I did.”
I told her that school is not for everyone, and that sometimes we need those little pushes. I told her that she was an innovator.
She felt it. “Oh yeah, absolutely.”
Honestly, from the days I hung out with Vivi, David and the team at Freedom Ecowear I understood the reasoning behind Freedom’s whole mindset in that refusal. Refusing to conform runs through everything they build, including her belief that there is more than one way to do slow fashion.
Make Clothes If You Can'f Afford Them
The aunt's sewing machine that started a swimwear business
As a young girl growing up in the country side of Dominican Republic, Vivi could not afford clothes, so she made them.
“When I was in college, I didn’t have enough money to buy clothes,” she said.
“So I took some of my sketches, and I busied this aunt, she sews, and she started making some of the clothes. It was cheaper this way to actually have new clothes.”
Then the street did the marketing.
“When I started wearing them to college, people started asking me, like, where you get that top? Where did you get those pants? And I’m like, I made it,” she said.
“And they were like, oh, you should start selling them. And I was like, oh, this is a nice business idea. And that’s how I started.”
She still recommends that aunt route to anyone who cannot afford natural clothes new.
“If you cannot afford expensive natural clothes, I went to my aunt, she’s a seamstress, I gave her my designs, I bought the fabrics that I liked, which were usually cotton and linen, and made myself some garments,” she said.
“This is way cheaper than even buying synthetic, honestly.”
That instinct grew into a verified woman co-owned brand you can buy from at Freedom Ecowear.
Best Business Advice For A Startup Fashion Brand
The advice from a stranger that pointed her at swimwear
At first Vivi was making everything, shorts, tops, blazers.
Then a chance meeting reset the whole brand.
She had just come out of a radio interview about her craft, and ended up waiting in a meeting with some visitors, and one of them asked what she did.
“He looked at me and said, okay, do you accept advice? And I was like, sure,” she said.
“And he told me, focus on one thing. Stop doing shorts and tops. Focus on one thing. Once you get that right, then continue doing other stuff.”
It stung. “For me at that moment it was shocking, because I was like, everything sells, why would I only focus on one thing?” she said.
“But I followed his advice regardless. And that’s when I decided to do swimwear, because I was like, I live on an island.
It makes sense that I focus on swimwear.
A Caribbean swimwear brand makes sense.”
That single decision is why the directory lists Freedom Ecowear as a Caribbean swimwear brand and not a do everything label. Focus, she says, is sustainable in itself. “Trying to do many things at once takes more energy, more resources, more focus. When you do one thing right, you can get known for that one thing, and then the rest will just follow.”
Learning the craft, because she had to
When the brand grew, Vivi did not just hire machinists.
She learned to sew herself, across the long transition years.
“We did a career, three years, to learn how to sew,” she said. “That was part of the transition.
Especially since we were going to own our own factory. Like, how am I going to employ people and tell them what to do if I don’t know how to do it?”
There is respect in knowing the craft. “I find that people respect you more when you know what you’re doing. And I want to inspire respect in my work, with my workers,” she said.
She even forced her way into bigger factories to learn. “I forced my way in because I was the smallest brand there.
In order to make sure they delivered on time, I had to be there, because I wasn’t enough motivation for them, I was the smallest production they had.”
That was the world she eventually walked out of, the polyester factory system she left in a seven year transition.
Why she lets the brand lead
The most striking thing about Vivi is that she does not try to control Freedom Ecowear.
She listens to it.
“I feel the brand itself has a personality that I have to respect,” she said. “And I feel it was born to be global. That’s why, when I started to limit it, to keep it local, it just didn’t do good. So I just listened to it.”
She reads the demand as a message.
“If you see so many people from overseas trying to get your products, it’s because they get it, they feel attracted to it,” she said.
“Just listen to your brand. We will show you the way. Sometimes we want to control everything because we think we know better. But the truth is, when you trust the process and let it unfold, you’ll be surprised by the potential.”
The aligned choice is often the nearest one
There is something freeing in this story for anyone ever told they were doing it wrong.
Vivi got expelled for the exact thing that became her life’s work. She started hustling, with help from an aunt and a sewing machine, and a stranger’s one line that sent her toward swimwear.
The point is not that everyone should drop out and sew.
It is that conscious creation beats consumption, and it usually starts small and near.
Our girl Vivi built a global, eco friendly swimwear brand from a classroom sketch and a borrowed machine, by listening rather than forcing.
There is a lesson there for how we shop too: the most aligned choice is often the one already within reach.
In the next few weeks you’ll learn how she turned that same instinct into a polyester free brand, and for the wider picture, our sustainable clothing guide sits right alongside this one.
If you read this far and got to know Freedom the way I did, thank you, truly. As a reward, Vivi gives you 12% off your own piece of natural swimwear with code Vitality at Freedom Ecowear.
Go and meet the brand that started with a sketch.
-12% Off Exclusive Discount On Sustainable Swimwear
Freedom Ecowear have given us a discount of -12% off to share with our website visitors. Use the link to claim your discount.Â
