GC Eye: How Karina Irby’s success with Moana Bikini has been her best revenge
FIRED from her job in a surf shop, Karina Irby had the ultimate comeback. At the helm of her own bikini empire, she’s letting her bottom line do the talking.
Beaches & Fishing
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IN the world of social media, trolls and online judgment, Karina Irby has learned to literally turn the other cheek.
As the founder of cheeky swimwear label Moana Bikini, her bottom has probably appeared in her social media feed more times than her face, giving some the opinion the blonde bombshell is all booty and no brains.
The 27-year-old entrepreneur may have her derrière front and centre, but behind the social media scene, she’s no beach bum.
Just days away from her biggest season launch yet, which will see her release 50,000 pieces to the market, Karina has built a global swimwear label that started with an $800 loan from her dad after she was fired from a surf shop retail job six years ago.
Her branding and imagery may be of a girl spending all her time in the sea and sand but Karina’s life story to date is testament to the old adage you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
“In reality I’m in my pyjamas at a computer desk,” Karina says.
“People definitely don’t get to see the real me that often.
“We portray this really easy work space and other girls think it’s easy, but the reality of business is that you don’t stop.”
An only child, growing up in small town Port Macquarie in NSW, Karina had low self-confidence when it came to her body and wasn’t one for much exposure, in stark contrast to the business empire she’s now building.
“I grew up with really bad eczema and I was called names,” she says.
“I do have quite a big bum and I would get teased about that too. I was so self-conscious I would wear shorts and cover my legs.
“I thought I looked badm but through high school I became more carefree. I thought, you know what, you can say whatever you want to me but I know who I am and I’m proud of who I am.”
Karina finished Year 12 in 2006 and took a year off before moving to the Gold Coast where she went to Southern Cross University and completed a Bachelor of Sports Management and Exercise Science.
“My parents never gave me a cent, I had to earn everything. I worked at Hogs Breath Café waitressing for 12 months and saved enough to get up to the Gold Coast,” she says.
“I moved in with some family members until I did the whole share-house thing, which I didn’t like.
“I don’t party and don’t drink, I’m pretty boring to be honest. I never got into drinking — I don’t like the taste of alcohol so why drink something you don’t like the taste of?
“I’ve always been a bit of hermit and being an only child I was used to doing my own thing.
“It was hard to make friends, especially moving to the Gold Coast because it’s such a social place. Even today I’ve got less than five good friends around me.
“It ended up being a blessing because I’d been interested in doing coding of websites, so I taught myself to do that.
“I’d get on the computer and learn. Everyone was on MySpace then and it was fun to get in and build the site.”
Her hours on the computer learning how to build a website would pay off when a couple of years later she found herself out of a job and with bills to pay.
“I was doing surf instructing and at night was working in a surf store. Everyone was really young and fun and so it was a social time for me. We were like family.
“It came as a shock one day when my boss called me on the phone and said I was fired. Because we played around so much I thought he was joking.
“He said: I’ve been told by a reliable source you’ve been sending customers to other stores.
“I was embarrassed I was fired. I knew the person I am — I’m really nice, good at my job. I thought those people were my friends and there was this family thing going on.
“Then I thought screw it, everyone had always said to me I should do my own bikini line, so that’s what I did.”
Armed with her website and an $800 loan from her dad Patrick, Karina entered the swimwear industry with 20 pairs of bikinis she sourced from overseas and earned her a couple of thousand dollars.
It was the beginning of Moana Bikini, which has expanded year upon year since then.
“Six years ago it wasn’t clichéd for a girl to design a bikini. Then, there was nothing around and nobody was doing the cheeky cut at the time.
“I’m pretty curvy and if I wore a classic full-cut bottom it was saggy.
“When I went over to Hawaii, I bought so many different pairs and everyone was complimenting me.
“When I was fired I thought I could start wholesaling them, so I emailed some labels and one showed interest. That sold out within a day.
“This was when the plan came about — it was, let’s just order some more, double it, and we’ll see if it’s as popular or if it was a one-off thing.
“We’re hoping to drop 50,000 pieces for our launch this month. Dad has only just let me pay him back three months ago.”
Karina’s dad Patrick has done more for her business success than the $800 loan.
Not only did he encourage her to make bikinis, but he is her personal motivation in life, after she witnessed a freak accident in which he became quadriplegic.
“My parents divorced when I was 12 and I grew up with my dad,” Karina says.
“Mum was involved in a relationship I couldn’t be a part of.
“My dad and I were really close. I used to go to work with Dad, who was a plasterer, every day — I could plaster your house for you.
“He was such a big believer in me. Dad was the one who would say: ‘Oh Karina, you should just make bikinis’. Dad was always on my back about doing it.”
Patrick was visiting the Gold Coast five years ago when a fall at the beach changed everything.
“We were at the Quiksilver Pro and he came to watch the surfing. He’d just watched his favourite, Kelly Slater, and he was walking to the shoreline,” Karina says.
“He had shattered his knee six months previously, and the doctor had said he could take the brace off.
“As he was walking, his legs hyper extended and he started falling towards the shoreline. He put a foot on a rock but he fell face first into shallow water and rock.
“He kinked his spinal cord at the C3 vertebrae.
“He came up floating like a dead man in the shallow water. We were saying: ‘very funny Dad’, we thought he was joking around.
“You could see he was trying to use his shoulders to roll over. He was completely paralysed.
“I was hysterical. He said later he thought he was going to drown there because it took so long for everyone to realise he needed help.”
The 53 year-old has just moved to Palm Beach, not far from Karina’s Currumbin home, and she says her success with Moana has enabled her to support her father now.
“Dad is my hero. The reason I like to go to the gym so much is I want to do it for him. It’s not that he can’t do it, but that I can,” she says.
“I want to work out, I want to run that extra kilometre, because Dad can’t do it.
“Dad pushed me to do Moana so much and lent me that initial $800. So Moana has helped me care for my dad now.
“There was one point where the medication and pain killers he was taking that his teeth were rotting and falling out and he was in pain and it was getting him down.
“Because of Moana I could arrange for him to have his teeth fixed.”
While Karina works out daily, with a morning gym session, an evening pilates session and weekend beach runs with her partner Ryan Jones, who also works as Moana’s marketing manager, she takes time out of her schedule each week to be with her dad at his gym sessions.
“I leave work and go for two hours and help him out,” she says.
“If this had happened to me, Dad would have my back.
“Dad never wants me to do take care of him. He wants me to have my own life, he’s adamant about that.
“I’m always going to be there to take care of him though, no matter what.”
While Patrick is a huge motivating force in Karina’s life, the motivation for Moana’s success she says is the loyal customers who she calls The Moana Army.
With 200,000 followers on Snapchat, more than 410,000 who follow Moana Bikini on Instagram, another 379,000 who follow Karina’s personal Instagram account and 78,000 Facebook fans, it’s little wonder ranges sell out within a week, or on accession in the past, 45 minutes.
The customers are more than buyers — they’re also Karina’s defenders when the online trolls comment on her pictures.
“Dad motivates me personally but the real motivation for the business is our customers,” she says.
“We’ll have a sample sale and they’ll be there six hours early lining up.
“People definitely underestimate me when they see the pictures of me in a bikini and I do think it’s funny when people say things on social media. They really don’t know who I am.
“They’ll say things like: this girl has to show her a*** off to get attention on social media, or she’s pushing photos of herself, or she doesn’t have a business and probably has a sugar daddy.
“Or she’s got blonde hair and a big a*** and doesn’t have any brains.
“I never really comment but the Moana Army will say you’re an idiot, she’s got a bikini label.”
When it came time to shoot the latest campaign photos and videos, the Moana Army were asked to take part.
A call out across social media resulted in 30 women from the Moana Army joining the campaign shoot in Hawaii, one way Karina says helps keep the brand about real women and not models.
“Some girls were messaging me saying I’m a size 12, do you still want to use me and we’re like: hell yeah! Size 12 is an average size.
“When I was starting Moana, everything out there was about being thin and attractive.
“I’m a bit stubborn. I hate people telling you how you should be.
“Every year we’re making adjustments to make a point — you don’t have to be a size 8 to wear a small cut bikini.”
Karina says pressure to please her customers, especially as demand continues to outstrip supply, is her biggest stress, albeit a positive one.
With new product lines launching and also the Bikini Body Burn fitness program running within the Moana brand, Karina is feeling confident in body and business.
“My mum used to say, ‘One day you won’t care what others think’.
“I feel good and confident which is something different for me.”
