Dive Brief:

• E-commerce (and, increasingly, brick-and-mortar) apparel retailer ModCloth is again featuring "real" women—including employees, customers and models—in its swimsuit marketing efforts, also introducing a new video series called “Hot Tub Roundtable” featuring women that inspire.

• The first “Hot Tub Roundtable” video, posted on ModCloth's blog Wednesday, features Susan Gregg Koger, the retailer's co-founder and chief creative officer, chatting with Micki Krimmel, roller derby star and founder of activewear brand Superfit Hero, Studio Mucci founder Amina Muccilio, and Samantha Kuntz, founder of vintage app Whurl, about the challenges of entrepreneurship, self-doubt and online interactions.

• The campaign also invites customers and viewers to chime in on the conversation on social media with the hashtag #ModClothHTRT.

Dive Insight:

ModCloth has long been keenly interested in offering its on-trend, pretty dresses and accessories to women of all sizes, and it's made a point of spotlighting women of all body types in its advertising and on its website. Last year that stance led ModCloth to retire the “Plus” category from its website and fitting stores in favor of featuring clothing in a range of sizes instead.

ModCloth is not limiting its advocacy of inclusion to its sales and modeling approaches, but is seeking to drive a conversation among women on topics well beyond fashion.“Every body is a ‘swimsuit body,’” reads the company’s Wednesday blog post. “We’ve always known—and shown—that to be true. But… isn’t there more to it than that? We think so.”

This is a retailer with a strong sense of self, thanks not just to the vision of its founders, but also to the close ties it enjoys with its customer base, or what it calls its “community.” That's a fairly unusual advantage at a time when retailers from discount even to luxury are struggling to connect with consumers.

ModCloth's vision also includes expansion into "offline, international and brand extensions," the company said last month when it announced three new executive hires. Mary Alderete, who has two decades of experience with such brands as Levi Strauss and Gap, will lead the ModCloth’s marketing and brand creative efforts as CMO. Elizabeth Cooksey joins as the company’s first VP of stores and retail operations, after working as an adviser for ModCloth's pop-up experiment last summer. Mike Janover, most recently at Yahoo, is now VP of marketing to oversee customer acquisition and retention.