Diane's is BACK Baby!!

Diane's Beachwear, located in Downtown Huntington Beach, has been the cornerstone of women's swimwear and beachwear since it first opened in Huntington Beach in 1997. With the largest selection of swimwear in town, owner Diane Bigg's shops have been a favorite stop for swimsuits in Southern California since her mother, Mickie Bandle, opened the company's first store in Manhattan Beach in 1962. The shop was the first in the beachwear industry to offer the chance for women to mix sizes when selecting their swimwear tops and bottoms.

Then Covid struck and the iconic swimwear retailer which opened 36 additional stores in five states, including Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach and Palm Springs, started closing their brick-and-mortar locations in rapid succession. They filed for bankruptcy in the summer of 2020.

For many generations of fans and shoppers, this was a tragic end to Diane’s era of swimsuits.

Diane Briggs, left, her mom Mickie Bandle, and sister Carol Bandle, shortly after the first shops openend.

Owner Diane Biggs is known in the industry as someone who has a natural talent for sniffing out the next beach fashion trend. She also led the way in a creating a “shopping experience” — window displays that look like resorts, plumeria-scented candles, vacation reggae music playing. She even admitted, “If I could have, I would have served customers Mai Tais.”

“Women take two weeks to get ready to purchase a bikini — they lose a couple of pounds, get a spray tan, make sure they are having a good hair day and then they might spend two hours trying on different designs to get just the right combination,” according to Biggs, who has helped five generations of women look their best on the beach. She tells the story of a 90-year-old customer in a wheelchair who was just as keen about fit as her teenage counterparts.

“I might keep a couple of the stores and the website," Biggs said of her future. "Mostly, I want to help other women — mentoring them on opening shops using the tools I have to reinvent themselves to rethink and repackage what they are doing.”

She reflected a moment and said, “What I enjoyed most was getting a new store ready for the big reveal — removing the paper from the windows and seeing the look on customers' faces as they peered in for the first time.”

And that’s just what happened on April 17th when Diane’s had a grand reopening of their Huntington Beach location! Located at 118 Main St, Huntington Beach, CA 92648, they are open from 9:30am to 7:00pm and they have dressing rooms open as well!

Fans on their social media have been celebrating with them and asking that they reopen their other locations.

Popular brands include L Space, Vix, Vitamin A., Luli Fama, B. Swim, Sunsets, Swim Systems, Roxy and Billabong.