BootBikinis’ spring 2025 collection at PacSun features seasonal colors of pink, green and white as well as crochet bikinis. They’re a great fit with the popular California-inspired clothing brand PacSun, which is selling the collection in its online store. 

Before being picked up by PacSun, BootinBikinis got its start as a small business selling cowboy boots and bikinis at the University of Arizona.

Then-UA student Carley Pinsonneault founded the business in 2021, when cowboy boots were trending among college students, especially at the UA. They were the footwear of choice at football games, fraternity parties and even nights on the town.

Pinsonneault decided to express her passion for fashion by starting her own line of boots. 

“I always wanted to do it. I saw such a niche in the market,” she said. 

At the same time, her friends were wearing bikinis from both high end and fast fashion brands – some cost just $10, while others were as much as $200. Pinsonneault wanted to create an option between those two price ranges. 

She said she was also inspired by a two week trip to Greece. 

“The fashion in Europe is just insane. I was so fascinated by everything,” she said. And she asked herself: “This is everything and more, why don’t we have these in the states?” 

So, she took a leap.

“I wanted to do this since high school. I just never knew where to start, how to financially do it. I’m no nepo baby. I’m so transparent about that – if I was going to do it, it was going to be on my dime and me figuring it out,” she said. “So I started being a waitress, started babysitting. I took every job in the book, a personal assistant and I saved up six grand and started looking for a manufacturer.”

Once she found the right partner, BootinBikinis quickly gained success selling both swimwear and boots at the UA. But Pinsonneault said she found it increasingly difficult to express her creativity with boots and ultimately shifted primarily to a swimwear line. 

“I got rid of the boots, stuck to bikinis, got way more detailed with them, put all my money into that. And Bootin was really a startup – I would make money from the drops and put it back into the next drop,” she said. 

While at the UA, Pinsonneault brought on student interns to help market BootinBikinis to UA consumers. 

Emily Meyerson, now director of strategic marketing, started her journey with the brand in fall 2023 as an intern. 

“During my internship, I was responsible for content creation and organizing pop-ups and events, including one for BootinBikinis’ third anniversary,” she said.

She became a full-time employee in January, managing a team of 10 interns and overseeing all of the brand’s social media channels and website design. 

The brands UA interns plan and host pop up shops on campus, which have helped gain a following and new customers.

“BootinBikinis has made a strong impact on the University of Arizona campus and its students,”said Caitlin O’Connor, a senior marketing major and intern at BootinBikinis.

“Because Carley, the founder, is a UA alum, the brand has built a solid market among students,” she said. 

As Pinsonneault’s company has grown, it’s caught the attention of an audience far beyond the UA, too. Last year, BootinBikinis was featured in the June 2024 edition of British Vogue.

Then, the U.S. retail company PacSun, which caters to teens and young adults, noticed the brand at a July 2024 trade show in Huntington Beach, Calif. Earlier this year, the company launched the brand’s spring bikini collection in its online store.

Hope Simpara, a professor of the Fashion Industries Science and Technology Department at the UA, said BootinBikinis is an example of student “creativity and entrepreneurship.” 

Pinsonneault’s spring collection with PacSun is representative of current swimwear trends, she added, pointing to crochet and gingham designs now popular in Southwest and West Coast cultures and seen in this year’s Miami Fashion Week. 

“I really appreciate that this is a female owned business and has an all-female team and have achieved placement in a retail giant like PacSun,” she said. 

Pinsonneault also takes pride in running a woman-owned business and wants her brand to represent other young women, too.

“I really want to talk about body positivity and encourage women to feel their best and being an advocate for that,” she said.

BootinBikinis’ line for PacSun launched on Thursday, Feb. 20 and will be available on the site until they sell out. 

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.