Gold Coast girl is filling a gap in the swimwear market for cheeky, unique designs

THE Gold Coast has a new bikini queen and she’s young, hot and turning over millions of dollars from her striking designs.

Bikini lines taking off on Coast

THE Gold Coast has a new bikini queen and she’s young, hot and turning over millions of dollars from her striking designs.

Twenty-six-year-old Karina Irby, of Currumbin, launched Moana Bikini in 2011 to fill a gap in the swimwear market for cheeky, unique designs.

Undeterred by a lack of training in design and in her early 20s, she applied herself to learning how to create eye-catching bikinis.

“I did a lot of YouTubing and I would stay up until 3am learning how to design swimwear,” she said.

When she launched her range online, it sold out within a week and today, buyers from Australia, America, Europe, Russia and as far as Iceland are snapping up her ­bikinis, which sell for $75 a piece.

Miss Irby also has more than 300,000 Instagram followers and despite her incredible success, she is friendly, engaging and refreshingly modest.

Karina Irby is filling a gap in the swimwear market.

She said as a child growing up in Port Macquarie, she loved bikinis.

“I was a young, surfer girl who lived in swimwear and I always liked the cheekier styles that were sold in beautiful places like Hawaii but couldn’t be found in Port Macquarie,” she said. “So, when I was 20, I went over to Hawaii and got inspired about bikinis.”

After approaching a few shop owners there to sell their swimwear, one of them agreed for her to sell their merchandise online from Australia.

Anna Mcevoy, left, and Stephanie-Claire Smith model Moana Bikinis.

“I did that for about two years but the store in Hawaii was small and they couldn’t keep up with my demand. They made me an offer to be their distributor in Australia but I turned it down because I wanted to design my own bikinis,” Miss Irby said.

“So, I packed my bags and not really knowing what I was doing, I flew over to Indonesia. I did some networking, walking from one fabric shop to the next to find out about getting my own designs made there.”

Eventually, an Australian in Bali agreed to manufacture for her after she showed him her designs and a business plan.

“When I launched 100 pieces in 11 styles online, they sold out within a week. It was really amazing because I didn’t know what to expect,” she said.

Her second collection was another massive sellout and her range has grown so quickly that in December, she launched 1000 pieces of 24 styles, which sold out in only 45 minutes. The bikinis are made from fabric imported from France and Italy. She runs her thriving business with a staff of four from a section of a studio that she rents at Burleigh Heads.

Miss Irby markets on Instagram and Snapchat and she said the latter allowed her to be more personal with customers, which was important.

Instagram moana_bikini