Two local “bros” are looking to take the fashion world by storm with their new, unconventional beachwear item: the “Brokini.”
The product is the brainchild of Chad Sasko and Taylor Field, and is described tongue-in-cheek on its own website as “the perfect swimwear to make your parents question where they went wrong.”
“We’re getting lots of great feedback and we’re getting lots of negative feedback, which we’re finding hilarious,” said Field, who, along with Sasko, attended Medway High School in London, Ont., and graduated in 2010 from Western University with a Bachelor of Management and Organizational Studies. Both later moved to Toronto, where Sasko still lives.
“We’re getting comments like we need to be more worried about the spread of brokinis than the spread of COVID. Lots of ‘why would you ever make this?’ And then we’re also getting people saying that they’ve been waiting their whole lives for a bathing suit like this,” Field told 980 CFPL’s Devon Peacock on Wednesday.
The bathing suits may not leave much to the imagination, which may be the point, judging by the marketing.
“The one shoulder bathing suit guaranteed to turn heads. Show off your 🍆 in style this summer 🙈,” reads the Brokini Instagram page.
If you’re wondering how such a bathing suit came to be, Field cites the bachelor parties he and Sasko attended through their 20s.
“With our group of friends, people just kept trying to one-up each other in terms of crazy outfits to wear. And eventually down the line, Chad and I came up with the Brokini.”
In an interview with BlogTO, Sasko recalled seeing a wrestling leotard on the internet and thinking, “Hey, that could maybe be a bathing suit.”
Field says the pair began working on the Brokini last year, and in that time, located a manufacturer and launched a social media campaign.
“We originally made 250, which were in Chad’s mom’s garage which we were using as our fulfillment centre,” he says. Producing the initial Brokinis cost about $5,000.
“For the first three weeks we sold four or five. And those were all to friends. But then we blew up on Monday, and now we have moved most of our inventory, and we’re starting to take a ton of backorders.”
In the last few days, the Brokini has received increasing press coverage, including from, among others, BlogTO, BuzzFeed, CityNews, Daily Mail Online, the Toronto Sun, and Esquire, who wrote “the brokini is a supposed bikini for men that exists because 2020 has yet to tire of depleting your soul.”
“I couldn’t believe it. I was on Esquire.com with Ryan Gosling and other famous people, it was just the funniest thing. My wife was laughing at me like crazy,” Field said.
The Brokini currently comes in two patterns, “Bromingo” and “Fineapple,” at a cost of $45 apiece. (As of this writing, a Brokini can be fetched for a sale price of $40.)
Field says the demographic makeup of those adding Brokinis to their online carts is varied.
“Lots of women reaching out and saying, ‘would you wear this?’ to their husbands on social media. The guys always say ‘no,’ and then we end up getting orders from the women anyways, which we think its hilarious,” he says.
The Brokini has also proven popular among men and fraternities who have reached out to get the bathing suit for things like bachelor, beach, and pool parties, Field said.
“We went into it with the expectation to try to have fun and make a funny product and see if there was anybody else out there who were silly like we were,” he says.
“We honestly thought that we might just end up giving them away to friends because we had no idea. But it turns out, there’s lots of people out there like us who just like to have fun, so now we’re rolling with it.”