10 Years of Funkita

Can you believe it's been 10 years since Funkita first made its splash in the pool back in the summer of 2004? As we celebrate our special day we thought it would be a great chance to take a trip down memory lane to look back on the decade that Funkita has grown up in.

2004

It's 2004 and with Funky Trunks making waves on the bums of the boys around Australia, girls were demanding their own colourful swimwear. So with some exciting bright prints designed, and with the words Funky and chiquita joined together, we devised the name Funkita and our swimwear label was born. One of our first two pieces Flamins was spotted on the famous Aussie Olympian, Brooke Hanson with her fellow squad mates on the sunny Currumbin beach.

It was also the year of the Athens Olympics and Australia came home with 50 medals, including 15 in the swimming. Will Ferrell made us giggle in Anchorman, Friends said goodbye, Britney Spears was our idol and Jude Law was the sexiest man alive. The punks were rocking to Green Day and our own Aussie rockers, Jet were shooting up the Billboard charts!

2005

Working from a two bedroom apartment serving as the warehouse, customer service centre, design hub and of course home, we released the Bubble Rap print in Pink, Yellow and Blue. Our first orders came from retailers Swimwear Galore (see us at the Swimwear Galore store opening from 2005 here) and Sports Spot (the old swim shop at MSAC). We pulled friends together for a freezing cold photo shoot at Brighton Beach in the middle of winter.

In the world, the Black Eyed Peas were on repeat. Brad and Ange met on the set of Mr & Mrs Smith and Brangelina was born.

2006

In 2006 we were into our third collection and our Funkette army was starting to build. Petal Power ruled the Funkita range and our club cashback scheme kicked off with a bang as clubs across Australia joined our crusade. The Pussycat Dolls were big and Beyonce even bigger. There were Desperate Housewives everywhere and the one billionth song was purchased from Apple iTunes.

2007

It's 2007 and The OC Pink was our biggest selling print at the time. It was named after the TV show we loved with Mischa Barton and Adam Brody. We moved (or were forced) out of our little apartment and into a new office in Collingwood, Melbourne. There was so much room we had a room to ourselves (instead of 5 desks squashed into a bedroom). In the big wide world Kevin 07 was knocking off the Liberals(though couldn't repeat it in 2013 in our election sale)and Avril, JT and Gwen Stefani were still pumping out hits.

2008

We headed west for an amazing photo shoot at Lancelin with our favourite print, Indi Orange, glowing in the morning sun. We then took off to the Victorian Country Swimming Championship and it went off! Funkita was everywhere on pool deck!

It was the year of Beijing Olympics and we were busy getting swimwear to our Aussie syncho girls. It was a great chance for Funkita to support the synchro girls after they had given us their support right from the start. The Gossip Girl box set was out by Christmas and Kings of Leon dominated the Triple J Hottest 100 with Sex on Fire.

2009

The spectacular Northern Territory (see more images here) was the scene for our photo shoot with amazing sunsets and scenery to compliment an entire new range. It was the first year Funkita was to release 3 collections in a year and included some of our all time favourite prints.

It feels like yesterday but it was the year the world lost the King of Pop and the top two selling movies were Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Ice Age!

2010

By 2010 we were a team of seven and our spacious warehouse was starting to feel a little cramped! We four wheeled across the amazing Fraser Island for a 3 day photo shoot that included a tropical storm and blistering heat to capture some amazing images (see them here). We had retailers in Eastern Europe and suddenly France had caught onto Funkita!

The world had just discovered Bieber and we were vampire crazy with Twilight, Vampire Diaries and True Blood. Miley had long wavy locks and still wore clothes, so yesterday.

2011

We were bursting at the seams and it was time to move down the road to a warehouse 4 times the size! We decorated our new office and set up in New Zealand during World Cup fever. Our new range was Space Race and we headed to the Sydney northern beaches for a slightly obscure shoot at a very obscure space house (see more images here) Royal wedding fever was sweeping the world thanks to Wills and Kate and Gotye's song went global.

2012It's Olympics again! In London we designed the elaborate swimwear for our Aussie synchro girls (see one of the suits here on Olympian Tarren Otte) and set up operations in Europe. Funkita was going global! We had over 50 athletes on board across the swimming community and our photo shoots starred many of our talented athletes including young Vicentre swimmer Olivia Wells who went on to be crowned Miss Australia (view Miss Australia here).

Not many of us confessed to reading 50 Shades of Grey and we queued for the amazing new iPhone 5, once they fixed the antenna. Silver Linings Playbook made us cry and we were up to Breaking Dawn in the Twilight series.

2013

Last year, wow what a year! City Sweetheart sold out in less than 2 weeks, we launched Funkita Underwear and grew our retailer network to the Maldives and Thailand (anyone want to come on a holiday with us?!) We counted down the launches of our ranges Propaganda (More images from the collection here), Colliding Colours (More images from the collection here) and Pixel Mix (More images from the collection here) and cheered our star athlete Belinda Hocking to silver at World Champs (GO BINDY).

The Oxford English Dictionary crowned the word "selfie" as the word of the year. Gatsby brought back headpieces for a minute and Breaking Bad and Girls was keeping us glued to the TV. Our own Vance Joy topped the Triple J charts with Riptide.

2014

This year our tenth year has been the best so far! We launched We The People, Swim This City and of course Chaos in Colour. There were Funkita Fridays, #lovefunkita and the launch of Funkita Fit. We had Dannii Minogue tweet us and the Home & Away girls on the beach with us. We played up in Glasgow and our star swimmers Taylor McKeown and Bindy Hocking both picked up gold medals.

It's been an amazing 10 years for Funkita and could only happen with the support of our amazing fans. There is so much more to come so look out for another huge year in 2015 and a new decade ahead.  Love Funkita x