Q&A: Ana Ramos, owner of Con Cariño
Lucy Grey Shields
Ana Ramos, a third-year fashion merchandising major at the University of Georgia, founded Con Cariño, a handmade swimwear company, in 2023.
Q: How did you decide to name your company?
A: Well, I am of Spanish heritage so I chose it in Spanish and “Con Cariño” translates to “with love” so I wanted to make all my bathing suits by hand so kind of my my quote or whatever is “Bikinis Hechos Con Cariño” so bikinis made with love.
Q: And then what inspired you to start your company?
A: I always just felt like there was something missing in swimwear. I always felt like, a lot of my friends and I would complain about how they would be cool bathing suits, but they would be so expensive or they would just be not super good quality or certain designs that we wanted that just weren’t there and I just really felt there was a need for a handmade individual bikini maker, I guess.
Q: Okay, so I saw on your Instagram that your bikinis are handmade. How did you start making them?
A: It was a lot of trial and error. I saw how they fit. I started outlining my own bathing suits, making them for me. And then I got compliments and I started making them for my friends and yeah, now I kind of venturing into other sizes which is good and kind of other styles because I started just making triangle string bikinis. And I’m trying to make one pieces and different bando styles stuff.
Q: What is something unexpected you’ve learned about owning your own business so far?
A: That it’s hard to make a profit. It’s like you do all the buying and all of the fabric is expensive, all of the materials (are) expensive, plus the E-commerce and all that stuff, plus the labor that you do making it and stuff. So you have to up-price a little bit and then that’s just kind of hard just because people are like, oh that’s really expensive for a bathing suit. You don’t even if you lower it then you’re not going to get a profit.
Comments trimmed for length and clarity.
Why I Wrote The Story
I researched for my Q&A by looking at Ana Ramos’ personal Instagram account, the Instagram account for Con Cariño and the website for Con Cariño. I couldn’t find much from these three ways of researching, mainly just names, products being sold, price ranges and a few other facts. Throughout the Beat Q&A I learned a lot about interviewing. At first, I was too dependent on others to help me find people to interview, but I learned that the best way to get an interview is to put myself out there and ask sources/companies directly. I also learned that a 20 minute interview lasts a lot longer than I expected it to. I ran out of questions after about 15 minutes, which led me to have to come up with questions during the interview itself. I also want to start taking notes on my computer during interviews because my questions were on my computer so going from computer to notepad led me to miss important notes.