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The Names Behind the Bikinis

From centuries-old Japanese tea ritual to Pilates mornings and modern wellness culture — the story behind one of my favourite Yaropa sets.

Every Yaropa piece carries a name with a story behind it.

Not as an afterthought or simply a label, but as part of the world we build around each design. A name can hold a place, a feeling, a memory, a woman or sometimes, an entire way of looking at life.

So I wanted to start telling the stories behind them.

Because I don’t think a name should just sound beautiful. I think it should mean something.

Matcha Sonho began with a colour but somewhere along the way, it became a state of mind.

Matcha Sonho is one of my favourite sets in the Yaropa collection, and if I’m honest, that’s not only because of its colour.

That soft matcha-latte green is the first thing you notice. But what keeps me coming back to it is the feeling of the fabric against the skin and the way the cut flatters every curve.

Still, the name came before any of that.

And the more I learned about where matcha actually comes from, the more it felt like the only name this set could have.

Before Matcha Became a Trend

Matcha’s story began long before green lattes, wellness cafés and Instagram.

The practice of grinding tea leaves into powder developed in China centuries ago, particularly during the Song dynasty. Tea traditions later travelled to Japan, where powdered tea became deeply embedded in Japanese culture.

Over centuries, matcha became associated with chanoyu – the Japanese Way of Tea – and with principles influenced by Zen Buddhism: attention, simplicity, respect and presence.

The preparation itself became part of the meaning.

Measure.

Sift.

Add water.

Whisk.

Drink.

An ordinary action made deliberate.

Long before we talked about mindfulness as a wellness concept, there was already something powerful in the idea of giving your complete attention to something as simple as preparing tea.

Not because it makes you more productive afterwards.

Simply because, for those few minutes, that’s the only thing you’re doing.

What’s Actually in the Cup?

There is also a reason matcha feels different from an ordinary cup of green tea.

With brewed green tea, the leaves are infused in water and then removed. With matcha, finely powdered tea leaves are whisked into water and consumed, meaning you ingest the leaf itself.

Matcha naturally contains catechins including EGCG alongside caffeine and the amino acid L-theanine.

These compounds have attracted scientific interest, particularly around attention and cognition. Research on caffeine and L-theanine suggests that the combination can have beneficial effects on some measures of attention, while a small 2017 human study specifically investigating matcha found modest improvements in certain attention and memory tasks after consumption.

The science is more nuanced than some of the wellness claims surrounding matcha would have us believe.

And perhaps that’s worth saying.

Matcha doesn’t need to be a miracle drink to be meaningful.

Sometimes a ritual can simply be a ritual.

How Matcha Became a Whole Lifestyle

And then something interesting happened.

A centuries-old tea became an unmistakable symbol of contemporary wellness.

Matcha cafés appeared across cities far beyond Japan. The colour photographed beautifully. Social media embraced it. And somewhere between the reformer studio and the morning coffee run, matcha found itself at the centre of an entire lifestyle.

You know the image.

A matcha latte.

Pilates.

A matching set.

A slower morning.

Maybe a walk before opening your laptop.

What was once niche became aesthetic, and what became aesthetic became enormous business. The global matcha market is now projected by industry analysts to reach around $7.4 billion by 2030.

And yes — I’ll say it. I’m a matcha girl myself. Most mornings start with one.

I’m not immune to the trend, and I don’t want to pretend I am. But I also don’t think what’s happening is only about a pretty green drink.

The Dream Behind the Aesthetic

For a lot of women, I think matcha has come to represent something bigger.

A slower kind of aspiration.

For years, the version of success we were sold seemed to be built around speed.

More output.

More plans.

More work.

More visibility.

More everything, all at once.

Now there seems to be another dream quietly sitting beside it.

To feel well.

To have time.

To move your body because it feels good.

To eat well without turning it into punishment.

To build a beautiful life without constantly needing to prove that you’re busy living it.

Of course, ordering a matcha doesn’t magically give you that life.

And a Pilates class doesn’t solve the pressure women feel to do everything perfectly.

Sometimes wellness culture creates its own kind of pressure.

But underneath the aesthetic, I think there’s something genuine.

A desire for balance.

The five minutes it takes to prepare a matcha.

The hour you protect for movement.

The decision not to answer everything immediately.

Small rituals that say:

Not everything has to happen at full speed.

Matcha didn’t invent that dream.

It simply became one of the ways many of us learned to picture it.

What Does Sonho Mean?

And this is where the second half of the name matters.

Sonho means “dream” in Portuguese.

Matcha Sonho.

A matcha dream.

But for me, sonho isn’t about escaping reality.

It’s about imagining how you actually want your reality to feel.

Calmer.

Healthier.

More intentional.

More present.

Maybe a little softer.

The kind of life where ambition and wellbeing don’t constantly have to compete with each other.

What Matcha Sonho Means to Yaropa

The version of matcha we’re drinking today has a history stretching back centuries.

It didn’t need Instagram to mean something.

Long before it became a lifestyle marker, preparing and drinking powdered tea had become part of a practice built around attention, ritual and presence.

And that’s the part I want Matcha Sonho to hold onto.

Yaropa isn’t about chasing whatever aesthetic happens to be trending this season.

It’s about creating pieces you want to return to.

Pieces that feel good against your body.

Pieces that move with you.

Pieces that belong as naturally to a slow morning as they do to wherever the rest of your day takes you.

Maybe that’s the connection between the two words.

Matcha is the ritual. Sonho is the dream.

And somewhere between them is the life so many of us are trying to create:

Present, but ambitious.

Soft, but strong.

Intentional, but never rigid.

A life that isn’t only lived at full speed.

Trends will move on. But the desire behind Matcha Sonho feels much older than any trend and much more enduring.

Presence over noise. Quality over speed. Something worth returning to.

More names, more stories, soon.

∼ Yara
Founder of Yaropa

Sources & Further Reading

This story draws on research into matcha’s history and composition, its relationship with Japanese tea culture, and scientific research into its potential effects on attention and wellbeing.

The Names Behind the Bikinis

Every Yaropa piece carries a name with a story behind it.

Not as an afterthought or simply a label, but as part of the world we build around each design. A name can hold a place, a feeling, a memory, a woman or sometimes, an entire way of looking at life.

So I wanted to start telling the stories behind them.

Because I don’t think a name should just sound beautiful. I think it should mean something.

Some names carry mythology.

Others carry a feeling.

Romantica belongs to the second kind.

Warm skin after a day in the sun. Salt still in your hair. Dinner that starts too late. A song that immediately takes you back somewhere. Falling in love with someone, with a place, or simply with the version of yourself that seems to exist only in summer.

Romantica is about romance.

But perhaps not quite the kind you think.

Before Romance Meant Love

The word romance didn’t begin with love at all.

Its history leads back through Old French romanz, a word associated with writing and storytelling in the vernacular; the language ordinary people actually spoke rather than Latin, the formal language of scholarship, religion and authority.

Over time, these vernacular stories became associated with tales of knights, adventure, devotion and extraordinary events. Medieval traditions of chivalry and courtly love followed, with poets and troubadours writing of longing, admiration and an often idealized beloved.

Only centuries later did romance narrow towards the meaning we instinctively give it today: a love story, romantic feeling, an affair of the heart.

I love knowing that. Because underneath everything we’ve added to the word since, romance began with stories told closer to the language of real life. Not the official language.

What Happened to Being Romantic?

Somewhere along the way, being a romantic became slightly embarrassing.

We call ourselves hopeless romantics as though hope itself needs an apology.

We learn to be realistic. Independent. Unimpressed.

We protect ourselves by pretending not to care too much.

And perhaps that’s why I find romance interesting.

Because being romantic requires a certain willingness to care.

To believe that a dinner can be more than dinner.

That getting dressed can change how you feel.

That a place can become part of you.

That a song can hold an entire year of your life.

That anticipation has value.

That beauty doesn’t need to be useful to be meaningful.

Romance, in that sense, isn’t only about another person.

It’s a way of paying attention.

The Feminine Gaze

For centuries, so much romantic storytelling positioned the woman as the object of admiration.

The beautiful woman.

The desired woman.

The woman being pursued.

But I’m much more interested in what happens when she becomes the one looking.

What does romance look like through her eyes?

Perhaps she dresses beautifully because she likes the ritual of it.

She orders the wine she loves.

She swims alone before breakfast.

She buys herself flowers.

She stays at the table longer because the evening feels too beautiful to end.

She falls in love, perhaps.

But she also falls in love with cities, music, food, friendships, clothes, mornings, oceans and different versions of herself.

That’s the feminine gaze I associate with Romantica.

Not femininity performed to be admired.

Femininity experienced from within.

The woman isn’t simply the romantic subject of someone else’s story.

She’s writing her own.

Why Summer Makes Romantics of Us

And then there is summer.

Maybe no season has been romanticized quite like it.

Summer seems to change our relationship with time.

Days stretch longer. Plans become looser. We eat outside. We stay out later. We wear less, carry less, plan less.

Life moves outdoors.

And ordinary things somehow become memories before they’re even over.

A particular beach.

A white dress.

The smell of sunscreen.

A song playing from somewhere you can’t quite place.

The first swim of the morning.

The last light before dinner.

Maybe that’s why summer romances stay with us even when they don’t last.

Not necessarily because the love was greater.

But because summer has a way of making everything feel temporary while we’re still living it.

And temporary things ask us to pay attention.

Perhaps nostalgia begins there.

We know, somewhere in the background, that the evening will end.

That we’ll eventually fly home.

That our skin will lose its tan.

That September will come.

And so we look a little longer.

Romance, the Brazilian Way

There is something about this understanding of romance that has always felt close to Brazil for me. Because emotion is so present in its cultural expression.

You hear it particularly beautifully in Brazilian music.

When bossa nova emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s, it brought a quieter, more intimate musical language. Guitar, voice, rhythm and songs filled with love, longing, beauty and saudade.

The beach was never very far away.

Neither was the woman.

Neither was longing.

Bossa nova could make an ordinary moment like seeing someone pass, missing someone, sitting near the sea – feel worthy of a song.

And I think there is something deeply romantic about that.

Not grand gestures.

Attention.

A willingness to give feeling to the everyday.

Brazil even has a word that English never quite manages to translate perfectly: saudade.

Longing. Missing. Nostalgia.

Saudade can hold affection for something precisely because it is absent; a person, a place, a time, a feeling that may never return in exactly the same way.

Perhaps romance and saudade are closer than they first appear.

One teaches us to notice the moment. The other reminds us why it mattered once it’s gone.

What Romantica Means to Yaropa

When I named the Yaropa Romantica Bikini, I wasn’t thinking only about romantic love.

I was thinking about a woman who romanticizes her own life.

Not because her life is perfect. But because she notices it.

She allows herself softness without confusing it with weakness.

She enjoys beauty without needing to justify it.

She can be independent and still sentimental.

Strong and still moved by small things.

Maybe that’s what Romantica means to me most. It’s permission not to become cynical.

To keep a little softness in a world that often rewards the opposite.

To dress for the feeling.

To order dessert.

To swim when everyone else has already left the beach.

To fall in love with places.

To miss them when they’re gone.

To make memories knowing they won’t stay forever.

A way of moving through the world.

A way of noticing.

A way of living.

Romantica isn’t waiting for a love story. She’s already inside one.

∼ Yara
Founder of Yaropa

Sources & Further Reading

This story draws on linguistic and cultural research into the history of romance, medieval courtly love, bossa nova and the Brazilian cultural language of love, longing and saudade.

The Names Behind the Bikinis

Every Yaropa piece carries a name with a story behind it.

Not as an afterthought or simply a label, but as part of the world we build around each design. A name can hold a place, a feeling, a memory, a woman or an entire piece of culture.

So I wanted to start telling the stories behind them.

When I chose the name for the Sereia Bikini, I wasn’t thinking about the fairytale version of a mermaid waiting to be rescued or admired.

I was drawn to something much more powerful.

A woman belonging to the water. Magnetic without asking for attention. Sensual without performing for anyone. Feminine, but never fragile.

The deeper I looked into the stories behind the sereia, the more interesting she became.

Because the mermaid we recognize today isn’t really one story at all.

She’s the result of centuries of mythology, migration, religion and imagination and in Brazil, those worlds meet in particularly fascinating ways.

Before the Mermaid Had a Tail

The idea of a beautiful, dangerous feminine creature connected to water is much older than the mermaid we picture today.

Even the sirens of ancient Greek mythology weren’t originally the half-woman, half-fish creatures we now associate with the word. Early sirens were represented with female and bird-like forms. The familiar fish-tailed image developed much later, becoming established through medieval European imagery.

But something remained remarkably consistent.

The voice.

The attraction.

The danger of being unable to look or turn away.

For centuries, stories about sirens and mermaids have carried an uncomfortable combination of qualities that women were not always encouraged to possess at the same time:

Beauty and power.

Sensuality and independence.

Softness and danger.

The mermaid doesn’t conquer through physical force.

Her presence is the force.

And perhaps that’s part of the reason we are still fascinated by her.

When the Mermaid Reached Brazilian Waters

In Brazil, the story becomes more layered.

One of the country’s most famous water figures is Iara, also known as Mãe d’Água – Mother of the Water.

Today, Iara is commonly imagined as a beautiful woman or mermaid living in the rivers of the Amazon. Her beauty and song enchant those who encounter her, drawing them toward the water.

But even this apparently ancient story isn’t as simple as it first appears.

Brazilian scholarship has questioned the idea that the familiar fish-tailed Iara existed unchanged in Indigenous tradition before European colonization. Researchers have instead described the Iara we know today as a figure shaped over time, bringing together older Brazilian water beings and Indigenous traditions with the European mythology of the seductive mermaid brought across the Atlantic.

In other words, the Brazilian sereia became something of her own.

Not simply European.

Not simply Indigenous.

But transformed by Brazil.

And that feels important.

Because Brazilian culture so often exists exactly there: in the meeting, mixing and reinvention of different worlds.

Iara and Iemanjá: Two Different Women of the Water

There is another feminine figure whose presence is impossible to ignore when talking about Brazil and the sea: Iemanjá.

But it’s important not to collapse her story into Iara’s.

Iemanjá is not simply another Brazilian mermaid.

She is an orixá with Yoruba origins, carried across the Atlantic through the African diaspora and deeply revered within Afro-Brazilian religious traditions including Candomblé and Umbanda.

In Brazil, her identity became strongly connected with the sea, motherhood, fertility, protection and the sustaining force of water. Her name has been connected to the Yoruba expression Yèyé omo ejá – commonly translated as “mother whose children are fish.”

Her importance is not confined to mythology.

She is worshipped today.

Every year on February 2, thousands gather around Rio Vermelho in Salvador, Bahia, for the ‘Festa de Iemanjá’. Flowers and offerings are carried toward the water in one of Bahia’s most important Afro-Brazilian religious and cultural celebrations.

Iara and Iemanjá come from different traditions and should be understood on their own terms.

Yet their continued presence says something beautiful about the relationship between femininity and water in Brazilian culture.

The water gives life.

It moves.

It changes shape.

It can be soft enough to hold you and powerful enough that you could never control it.

Why Are We Still Fascinated by Mermaids?

Maybe this is what interests me most.

For centuries, femininity has often been described through opposites.

You could be soft or strong.

Sensual or respectable.

Beautiful or powerful.

The sereia refuses that choice.

She can be all of them.

Her femininity isn’t something that diminishes her power.

It is part of her power.

There is something incredibly modern about that for a figure whose mythology is so old.

And maybe that’s why mermaids keep returning.

In books. Art. Fashion. Film. Jewellery. Tattoos. Summer imagery.

We keep reinventing her because she gives us a language for a particular kind of woman: one who can be fluid without being uncertain, sensual without needing validation, and captivating without asking permission to take up space.

She doesn’t chase. She doesn’t explain. She simply belongs to herself.

What Sereia Means to Yaropa

And this is where the story becomes personal.

Yaropa has always existed between two worlds.

Swiss precision and Brazilian spirit.

Structure and feeling.

Restraint and sensuality.

When I named the Yaropa Sereia Bikini, I wasn’t trying to recreate a mythological character.

I wanted to capture a feeling.

That feeling when you step out of the water and feel completely at home in your body.

Not dressed for somebody else’s attention.

Not trying too hard.

Just present.

Confident. Fluid. Feminine.

There is sensuality in Sereia, but there is strength underneath it.

That’s what drew me to the mythology in the first place. These women of the water aren’t interesting simply because they’re beautiful. They’re interesting because their beauty was never separate from their power.

And perhaps there is another reason this story feels particularly close to me.

Here I was, building a brand rooted partly in Brazil, naming one of its pieces after the Portuguese word for mermaid only to find myself going deeper into the story of Iara and recognizing my own name within it.

It made Sereia feel a little more personal.

A little closer to home.

And it reminded me of something I love about creating Yaropa: sometimes you begin with a colour, a silhouette or simply a feeling and only later discover all the layers of meaning that were hiding underneath.

Perhaps that’s also my favourite interpretation of sereia:

Femininity doesn’t have to become harder to become stronger.

Sometimes softness is strength.

Sometimes sensuality is confidence.

And sometimes the woman doesn’t need saving from the sea.

She is the sea.

∼ Yara
Founder of Yaropa

Sources & Further Reading

This story draws on research into Brazilian folklore, the cultural history of Iara, Afro-Brazilian traditions surrounding Iemanjá, and the evolving symbolism of mermaids and feminine water figures.

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