The daughter of a beach volleyball player, Brazilian star Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa grew up in bikinis, playing on several different beaches around Brazil while her mother competed. Beachwear continued in her life during her teens as she decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and pursue a career on the sand as well, and, since September, they have also become a big part of her future.

A fashion lover, the 25-year-old Brazilian has finally decided to put in motion one of her long-time personal dreams and started her own beachwear company.

“Although I’m still young and will be playing beach volleyball for several years, I’ve always spent some time thinking what I was going to do when my career was over,” she told Volleyball World in an exclusive interview. “I knew I wanted to start my own business, but wasn’t sure what exactly it was going to be. Fashion was a hobby at first, but then became a passion and I just thought it would make a lot of sense if I had a beachwear company since it’s something I wear every single day and that has a connection with my history. Being able to live these two passions simultaneously has been a dream come true.”

A 2022 world champion and a Tokyo Olympian, Duda owns the company and she wants to be involved in every single detail of it, especially in the first months of operation. The business started with her and stylist Karyna Matos and has a few more employees, who handle accounting, marketing and shipping duties.

Despite her busy schedule while competing in Brazil and around the world on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour as she attempts to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics, she has the final word in every part of the process and in every decision made.

“The first step was reaching out to Karyna, who used to develop the pieces I used to wear when practicing and playing,” she explained. “Then we added a few more people to the team to help in other areas, but I’m still very involved with everything. Even when I’m traveling, I’m always in touch with them and aware of what’s going on. It’s been really fun to have something else to focus on and I’m loving the experience.”

Although still relatively new to the fashion world, Duda is heavily inserted into the beach world and that opens up all sorts of possibilities to her in her new journey.

Having the privilege of traveling the world and visiting beaches in every corner of the planet on the Beach Pro Tour, the Brazilian always has her notebook in hand and pays attention to anything that could serve as an inspiration for a new product.

“I think fashion is a picture of our lives, it’s everywhere,” she reflected. “As I travel the world, I see what the other players and the people that attend tournaments are wearing and that helps me in building my knowledge about fashion and understanding this segment better. Now, I have my eyes very open for that too when I’m traveling and I try to help our team insert the beach volleyball culture into our clothes. We want to be always trying new things out and seeing what kind of answer we get from our customers.”

Duda’s beach volleyball career skyrocketed very early as, in 2014, at the age of 16, she already had already won two U19 world titles and also gold at the 2014 Youth Olympics.

As she starts a new journey as a businesswoman, she knows it could take some more time to turn her new brand into a successful one, but perhaps with the help of some strong advocates, things could happen sooner than expected another time in her life.

“I’m so happy that some beach volleyball players have bought my products and told me they liked them,” she revealed. “That helps a lot with promotion too. More people are getting to know my brand and I’m super excited about it, but I know it takes some time until we can really establish ourselves.”

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