Growing up spending lots of time in Australia, rash guards (aka rashis) were part of the uniform. But once I was old enough to pick out a frilly bikini over a logo-ed water T-shirt, rashis — along with their in-built sun protection — became a thing of the past.
Sun-protective pieces — officially known as UPF (ultraviolet protection factor) clothing — have stayed much the same since, with most options landing somewhere between frumpy and ultra-sporty. But as more consumers wake up to the importance of sun protection, the UPF clothing space is beginning to evolve.
Halfdays’s new UPF collection might lean more athletic, but the pieces in its GwenUV fabric are far less gorpcore than is typical of sun-protective activewear. Rashi World and Hunza G have released swim-focused lines of UPF pieces, though both brands plan to push further into sun-protected ready-to-wear. Claudent, meanwhile, is leading the charge with chic, summery pieces that look as at home on the cobbled streets of Saint-Tropez (where Kendall Jenner wore the brand last summer) as they do on the sand.
“I looked around and I think there was one swimwear brand that did a nice version, and everything else I thought was either really frumpy or athletic looking,” says Georgina Huddart, founder of London-based swim brand Hunza G, which began developing UPF fabric in 2022, launching its protective line two years later. “There’s a whole load of women who want to wear something that protects their skin, but aren’t about to jump on a surfboard and hit a wave.”
At Claudent, UPF tech has always been central to the brand. Diagnosed with a sun allergy in 2019, CEO Mia Zee was met with a similar either-or to Huddart. “I started looking at what existed in the market and I was sort of shocked by the options. There really wasn’t anything that spoke to me on an aesthetic or quality level, and it felt like there was a gap,” she says. In 2023, Zee enlisted co-founder and creative director Emma Gerber to launch Claudent and fill the void for UPF clothing that fashion girls actually want to wear.
There’s potential for other brands to get involved, too. The UPF clothing market is projected to reach approximately $1.74 billion over the next several years, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of roughly 6.8% to 8%, per The Future Laboratory.