The swim and ready-to-wear brand Hunza G is so-called after the Hunza Valley, the mountainous region of Pakistan, whose people are known as some of the happiest in the world. This sense of positivity is central to the brand, which creates one-size-fits-all swimwear in its signature ’Original Crinkle’ fabric. ‘For me, I think it is such a good name – it’s ambiguous, unusual, it’s nice to say, and then has this really positive connotation,’ explains Georgiana Huddart, the co-founder who re-launched the brand in 2015 – adding the ‘G’ to mark a new era under her creative direction.
In the 1980s, when it was first founded by Peter Meadows, Hunza was something of a cult brand. Based in London, its impossibly stretchy, vivid dresses made their way to Hollywood, memorably being worn by Whitney Houston in the music video for ‘I Wanna Dance (With Somebody)’ and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Huddart, who grew up in London, first encountered pieces as a child in her mother’s wardrobe ‘that were really fun to stretch’, and especially remembers a swimming costume that expanded and recovered with her mother’s body through pregnancies with younger siblings.
Pieces from the S/S 2026 collection, which spans both swimwear and ready-to-wear
In her 20s, she bought vintage Hunza pieces on eBay and noticed how the material attracted attention: ‘I’d wear Hunza during the summer, and people always commented on it. They were either really nostalgic about the brand or they had never seen it before and were like “that fabric's insane”.’ The story goes that Meadows came across the innovative polyamide-elastane blend at a trade show in the 80s; it was the era of Alaïa, and ‘people trying to make less expensive Alaïa-esque fabrics’, Huddart explains. ‘He was a garment guy and he was looking for body-con dress fabrics. He found the crinkle and thought it would be amazing for swimwear.’
Huddart tracked down Meadows and proposed Hunza G: a relaunch of the brand still centred on the compelling crinkle fabric ‘but more democratic, in the sense that we would do a broad range of colours that worked across multiple skin tones, shapes that suited most body types. We would really consider how to include most people.’ Hunza G struck a chord quickly and organically, among celebrities like Rihanna and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley but also with everyday women. ‘We had all these women, who weren't necessarily even that interested in fashion, reviewing it in a really positive way. Women who'd had children, or who didn't feel confident about their bodies regardless of whether they'd had children or not, saying 'I put this thing on and it made me feel incredible'. So we gained momentum pretty quickly.’ In just over a decade, Hunza G has gone from Huddart on her own to a team of over 40 people.
The campaign for Burberry’s recent collaboration with Hunza G, which featured model Alva Claire and actress Simone Ashley
The tactile and unbelievably stretchy material is still Hunza G’s signature, but since re-launching Huddart has prioritised technical refinement. ‘We have improved it dramatically since the 80s,’ she explains. Hunza G pieces can achieve incredible stretch because they are seamless, and the fabric is a tubular knit produced on specialist machines at a family-run factory in Europe exclusively for the brand. The machines themselves contain thousands of needles, each individually set, calibrated and replaced by hand. ‘Because there are no seams, there are no points of failure for the fabric: most materials can stretch one way, ours stretches every way without distortion or bunching anywhere.’ There is meticulous precision – involving numerous processes – in the production of the crinkle fabric, because it is a technical, performance material that is able to repeatedly expand and recover. Every swimsuit features over nine million stitches. ‘One incorrect stitch would mean a mistake in the whole of that piece, so it’s not going to support your body.’
When we speak, Huddart is fresh from a trip to Paris to celebrate the launch of Hunza G’s collaboration with Burberry. The capsule collection features Hunza G’s signature shapes – in Original Crinkle, of course – trimmed with Burberry check and rendered in the house’s classic shades like white, tan and red. For all the ways the two brands might seem like opposites – Burberry as the originator of the trench coat, known for its outerwear; Hunza G the champion of summery swimwear – but Huddart describes very quickly finding common ground. ‘We are similar in terms of our history – of course one has existed for 40 years and one for over 100, but it's more that the investment in and obsession with fabric innovation is very much aligned. Both things are about performance – about being outdoors and analogue.’ ‘Democratic’ is a word Huddart uses to describe Hunza G often, and the same goes for Burberry: ‘They’re both about democratic aspiration. Of course Burberry is a luxury brand, but you get on the tube and see tons of people in a Burberry mac. It's a brand people feel they can buy into and is aspirational, and I really hope that's what Hunza is.’
‘Making performance products that are both functional and fashionable, that’s the journey for us,’ says Georgiana Huddart, who relaunched the brand in 2015
Looking to the future, Huddart is excited to embark on new collaborations and continue enhancing Hunza G’s range of fabrics. Last year saw the release of UV-protective gingham pieces across both swim and ready-to-wear, and more new offerings are in the pipeline. ‘Making performance products that are both functional and fashionable, that’s the journey for us,’ she says. Hunza G pieces are so carefully constructed that they also take on the quality of a heritage brand. ‘Buying something you know is going to be with you for life – even if it spends some time in a cupboard and then reappears ten years later – there's something really nice about that,’ Huddart muses. ‘Hopefully it will travel through life with you or be handed down to children. Whatever product you're buying, I think people want that feeling more so now than ever.’
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