What’s Going on With EmRata’s Swimwear Line?

The model's swimwear line, Inamorata, has customers furious over incomplete orders and months-long delays.

By Kady Ruth Ashcraft  |  March 19, 2024 | 2:23pm
Photo: Shutterstock Celebrities
What’s Going on With EmRata’s Swimwear Line?

Emily Ratajowski’s barely-there swimwear line Inamorata, which launched in 2017, seems to be not really there at all. According to legions of angry customers in the brand’s Instagram comments, orders placed on Black Friday in November have yet to arrive, having been delayed over and over again. 

“I, along with several other customers ordered items from Emrata during her Black Friday sale,” one frustrated customer Dakota told Jezebel in an email. “Most items were 50-80% off. An incredible deal,” she continued. But by January 2, when she still hadn’t received a bathing suit, let alone a tracking number, she followed up with the company. Inamorata told her it would be there by January 31. That date flew by and she reached out again. She was then promised the order would ship by the end of February, then mid-March. And now that the fourth provided deadline has passed, all Dakota has is yet another email offering her a refund. “If you’re totally over waiting, we totally get it,” the email, reviewed by Jezebel, reads. “Unfortunately our manufacturing team is still navigating delays,” implying that the swimsuits have yet to even be made.

Late Monday evening, Savannah Bradley, the Editor-in-Chief of Haloscope Mag, tweeted about the angry comments from frustrated customers dating back at least seven weeks. By early Tuesday morning, the Inamorata account, which hadn’t been active since November 24, 2023, started replying to comments and offering refunds. They posted an Instagram story that read, “Due to the overwhelming volume of orders off the Black Friday sale, we do have a delay on a small percentage of our orders.” Scrolling through the comments, “a small percentage” seems like an understatement. 

Soooo, what’s up with the delay? It’s not terribly unusual for companies to have shipping delays, especially around the holidays and major sales. But four months of delays, blaming the backlog on the manufacturer, a dormant Instagram account, and no mention of the issue on the brand’s website doesn’t spell out a thriving brand. Bradley also pointed out in a follow-up tweet that the brand’s collab with Mirror Palais, the NYC-based womenswear brand, comes up empty on Mirror Palais’ website. Although, the suits are still for sale on Inamorata’s site.

In general, celebrity-backed brands have a steep half-life—flashy and loud launches that bolster a celebrity’s personal image followed by a drop off due to actual business maintenance and production. Jared Leto’s doomed skincare line Twentynine Palms comes to mind. Leto severed ties with the brand’s parent company, effectively shuttering his product in mid-2023, after accusing them of mismanagement. Kristen Bell and Dax Shepherd’s baby product line Hello Bello filed for bankruptcy in October 2023, citing issues with shipping and production costs. TikTok star Addison Rae’s Item Beauty was pulled from Sephora’s shelves in January due to poor sales—a telling reminder that even a star’s popularity (Rae has 88.6 million followers) isn’t enough to buoy a brand. There has to be strong business acumen behind the popular face. Perhaps EmRata’s swimwear line is hanging on by string bikini, on the path to meet that same fate.

Jezebel reached out to Inamorata for comment and will update the piece if they respond.

 
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