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Behind the Brand: Summer Sun Is Making Family Beach Days Easier, One Wetsuit at a Time
Australian family beach days are wonderful. They are also, inexplicably, a military operation, which is exactly the kind of problem Summer Sun wetsuits were built to solve.By the time you’ve packed towels, hats, snacks, water bottles, spare clothes, goggles, sunscreen and the seventeen completely unnecessary things your children insist are coming with them, you’ve already done a day’s work. Then someone is cold, someone needs another layer of sunscreen and someone has decided the swimmers they happily wore last week are now completely unacceptable.
Which is partly why the story behind Summer Sun caught our attention. This isn’t the usual founder-spots-a-gap-in-the-
“I can’t take credit for this one. Summer Sun was started by Emilie, who couldn’t find anything she actually wanted to put her own kids in. Wetsuits at the time were stiff and restrictive, basically adult wetsuits shrunk down to kids’ sizes, and everything on the market was heavily branded and busy to look at.”
Belinda discovered Summer Sun as a customer, and what happened next is perhaps the best endorsement a children’s brand could ask for. She didn’t just buy another one. She became the mum giving wetsuits as birthday presents instead of toys.
“I started as a customer. Once my kids were in a Summer Sun wetsuit, my days by the water got noticeably easier. Before that, plenty of beach days were cut short by whingey kids, or by me getting over nagging them about sunscreen, or watching them shiver. I thought the wetsuits were genius. I wasn’t only buying them for my own kids, I started giving them as birthday presents instead of toys, because everyone needs one.”
Over time, Belinda became increasingly involved with Summer Sun, eventually running the business alongside founder Emilie before taking ownership when Emilie moved on to pursue other passions. It means the person now making decisions about the product has experienced it first as the person standing on the sand carrying all the towels, trying to keep everyone warm, covered and happy. We rather like that.
The best children’s swimwear is the swimwear they’ll actually wear
Parents can spend a great deal of time researching the technical credentials of children’s swimwear, but Belinda believes there’s something much more basic we should consider first: will your child actually wear the thing?
“It has to be comfortable, and they have to like it. If a swimsuit feels good and your child actually wants to put it on, half the battle is won, because the suit only protects them while they’re wearing it.”
Anyone who has attempted to negotiate with a four-year-old over an item of clothing will appreciate the logic.
Coverage is another reason Belinda became such an advocate for wetsuits with her own children. Summer Sun’s wetsuits are UPF 50+, providing protection to the areas of skin covered by the garment. For parents, that also means there is less exposed skin requiring sunscreen, although sunscreen and other recommended sun-protection measures remain important for areas that aren’t covered.
“I also love how much of the body a wetsuit covers, which means far less sunscreen to apply and reapply, since the suit is doing the work. Our wetsuits are UPF 50+, so all that coverage is real sun protection.”
And frankly, anything that reduces the square centimetres of a small, wriggling human we need to chase around with sunscreen before leaving the house is worthy of investigation.
The parental urge to buy a size bigger
Every parent knows the logic. Children grow at approximately the speed of light, so buying one size larger feels less like shopping and more like sensible financial planning. Why buy something they’ll outgrow when you can buy something with “room to grow”?
When it comes to swimwear, however, Belinda says resist the urge.
“The other thing I wish more parents knew is not to size up. It’s tempting to buy a size ahead so it lasts another season, but swimwear has so much stretch built in that you don’t need to. A well fitted swimsuit moves with your child and stays put in the water. A baggy one drapes, sags when it’s wet, and no kid is comfortable in a drapey swimsuit. So let them have a say in what they wear, and buy the size they are right now.”
It is one of those pieces of advice that sounds painfully obvious once somebody explains it. The bargain isn’t quite such a bargain if your child spends the entire day complaining about the saggy wetsuit you optimistically bought for Summer 2027.
Yes, apparently ‘Spiderman red’ is a legitimate colour specification
One glance at Summer Sun and you’ll notice the colour. There are bold pinks, reds, greens and blues alongside more understated earthy options, and while they make for beautiful beach photographs, Belinda says colour has always served more than one purpose.
“A lot of fun goes into it. I try to cover the whole rainbow across the range and love playing with colour combinations. But it works on two levels. Bright colour makes it easier for parents to spot their child in the water or across a busy beach, and that genuinely matters to people. The other half is choosing colours kids will love, because a wetsuit only protects them if they’re happy to put it on.”
Then comes perhaps our favourite piece of consumer research in the entire Summer Sun story.
“And kids absolutely have opinions. Between customer feedback and my own three children, I can tell you red is the Spiderman wetsuit and green is Hulk. We have kids who will only wear one colour, and parents who just need anything in pink.”
Any parent currently living through a pink-only, dinosaur-only, superhero-only or absolutely anything except the thing Mum picked phase will understand.
Not every family wants their child dressed like a human highlighter, however, and Summer Sun’s range reflects that too.
“Bold isn’t for everyone. We also offer gender neutral, earthier tones for parents who prefer a quieter palette, especially once their kids are confident swimmers and being easy to spot matters a little less. When it comes together, the parent has a child who’s comfortable and protected, and the child is wearing their favourite colour. Everyone wins.”
There is an important distinction here. Bright colours may make it easier for a parent to visually identify their child, but swimwear colour should never be relied upon as a water-safety measure. Close, active adult supervision remains essential around water regardless of what a child is wearing.
The material Summer Sun wouldn’t compromise on
While colour is the first thing you notice about a Summer Sun wetsuit, one of the decisions Belinda considers most important is something you can’t necessarily see.
Summer Sun moved from neoprene to Yulex® natural rubber, and Belinda says the decision was significant enough that the brand was prepared to rethink other elements of the product around it.
“The move from neoprene to Yulex® is the one we didn’t compromise on. Yulex® is a natural rubber, it’s the material brands such as Patagonia trust, and when you’re making things for babies and young kids, what sits against their skin all day matters. The switch meant retesting the wetsuits to make sure the fit and movement didn’t change, and sourcing the materials took time and a lot of work.”
Then came a particularly inconvenient problem for a company whose identity revolves around colour.
“Yulex® was also only available in black at the start, so we reworked our colour range until white was developed. For a brand built on colour, that tells you how much the material mattered to us.”
It is an interesting insight into the decisions parents don’t necessarily see when looking at the finished product. The colourful wetsuit hanging on the rack is the final result; behind it are choices about material, fit, movement and construction that ultimately determine whether a child will happily spend a day wearing it.
A wetsuit for the beach. And apparently the trampoline
One of the hardest calculations when buying anything for children is cost versus actual use. Children have an impressive ability to urgently require something and then never touch it again.
Belinda wanted Summer Sun to sit firmly at the other end of that spectrum.
“Really important, and part of it is just how I am. I don’t like being wasteful. I love getting proper wear out of things, and it’s even better when something can be passed on to a sibling or a friend.”
But the part we particularly love is where Summer Sun wetsuits actually end up.
“Because the fit is designed around kids and how they actually move, they end up wearing them everywhere: the backyard pool, the slip and slide, on the trampoline in the rain, swimming lessons, camping trips, waterholes, and of course the beach.”
We admit the trampoline in the rain wasn’t on our original wetsuit-use checklist, but children have apparently conducted their own product testing. For Belinda, that versatility is central to the value of the product. Rather than being something bought for the annual summer holiday and rediscovered eleven months later, she wants families to reach for their wetsuits whenever water, questionable weather or spontaneous childhood adventure is involved.
“I want families taking these everywhere, because there’s nothing worse than getting caught out and having the day stopped by your kids not being able to do the thing everyone really wanted to do. A wetsuit that works across that many activities, all year round, earns its keep well before it gets handed down.”
And that last part matters. A product that can survive one child’s adventures and still be passed to a sibling or friend is doing more than simply extending its useful life. For families already drowning in the sheer volume of stuff childhood seems to generate, buying fewer things that get properly used is an increasingly attractive proposition.
From customer to owner
Belinda’s path into Summer Sun is unusual because she didn’t have to imagine the customer she was designing for. She had been that customer. Years later, some of her favourite feedback comes from parents describing the same shift she experienced when she first put her own children into Summer Sun wetsuits.
“There have been a few. The everyday one is hearing from parents who are as happy as I was back when I was just a customer, messages telling us that something that used to be a struggle is now a positive part of their day. As a mum of three who gets properly bummed when a day doesn’t go to plan, that never gets old.”
Taking ownership of the business brought another kind of milestone, particularly when Belinda had the opportunity to reshape the brand she had originally fallen for as a customer.
“Taking over the business was another. I loved doing the rebrand and then watching it come to life in our summer 2025 campaign. Seeing something you helped shape out in the world was really rewarding.”
Then there are the slightly surreal moments.
“And then there’s the surreal one. The kids of pro surfers around the world wear Summer Sun. Kelly Slater, Carissa Moore and Kai Lenny, just to name a few. When people who spend their whole lives in the water choose your product for their own kids, that’s hard to beat.”
Fair point. There probably isn’t a much tougher focus group for children’s wetsuits than the offspring of professional surfers.
The feedback that matters most isn’t from professional surfers
As impressive as those names are, when Belinda talks about the feedback that really stays with her, she comes back to ordinary parents.
“The feedback that comes up again and again is confidence. Parents tell us their kids are braver in their wetsuits, that they’ll have a go at things they wouldn’t usually do, in a good way. And the other thing we hear is that the parents themselves are having better days.”
That feedback is anecdotal rather than a claim that wearing a wetsuit itself makes a child safer or more capable in the water. Swimming ability, water confidence and water safety are separate considerations, and appropriate adult supervision remains essential. But there is something very relatable in what those parents are describing: when a child is warm, comfortable and happy in what they’re wearing, the entire family’s experience can change.
“That one makes me so happy, because that’s what it’s all about, everyone getting the day they planned. I know exactly what those messages mean, because the harder days used to be mine.”
One particular message arrived at a time when most parents are doing anything except contacting a children’s swimwear company.
“The one that sticks with me came through on Christmas Day. With everything that day involves for a family, a parent still took the time to message us. I read it that morning and just thought, wow. That’s the whole reason we do this.”
Because eventually, these are the photos we’ll look back on
There is something about the final part of Belinda’s story that captures why products made for families can become meaningful in ways that have very little to do with the product itself. Most of us won’t remember which sunscreen we packed or how many towels we dragged to the beach. We probably won’t remember the argument in the car, the snack somebody rejected despite specifically requesting it or the approximately 4.7 tonnes of sand that somehow came home with us. We will remember the firsts. The first swimming lesson. The first wave. The first time they stood on a surfboard. The holiday where they seemed to grow up overnight. The summer when they lived in the pool. And, eventually, the photographs become the record of it all.
“We get tagged in a lot of families’ days on social media, and what sticks out most is the firsts. First surf, first swimming lessons. And then there’s the number of birthday photos where the kid is in their Summer Sun wetsuit, which I love, because nobody makes their child wear a wetsuit in a birthday photo. That’s the kid choosing it.”
That may actually be the ultimate children’s clothing review. Not that Mum bought it. Not that it looked good on Instagram. The child chose to wear it in the birthday photo.
“So when families look back on those summers years from now, I hope we’re there in the photos of the moments that mattered, and that maybe some of those moments were a little easier because of what they were wearing. That’s enough for me.”
And perhaps that’s the nicest way to understand Summer Sun. It’s not really trying to become the story of a family’s summer. It’s trying to make the logistics around that story a little easier, so families can get on with the good bit. Preferably without someone announcing they’re freezing 14 minutes after arriving.
Discover Summer Sun Wetsuits
If you’re planning beach days, swimming lessons, camping trips or, apparently, some rainy-day trampoline action, you can explore Summer Sun’s children’s wetsuits, colours and sizing information via Summer Sun.
Disclaimer
This article forms part of Parenthood360’s Behind the Brand editorial series and includes information and direct quotes supplied by Summer Sun. Product information should always be checked directly with the brand before purchase. UPF-rated clothing protects the areas it covers and should form part of broader sun-protection practices. Children’s wetsuits and brightly coloured swimwear do not replace close, active adult supervision or appropriate water-safety practices. Products or experiences may be provided to Parenthood360 for editorial consideration; coverage is not guaranteed and all editorial opinions remain independent.
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