By ROSEMARY BRANTLEY
Casual is good. Comfortable is good. Profitable is good.
But we’re hearing a discernible self-consciousness from the surfwear industry rooted in Orange County as it reaches new levels of acceptance among mainstream Americans, most of whom,no huge surprise,have never been on a surfboard.
In short, non-surfers are ever more aware of the surf brands, and the brands are ever more in need of satisfying consumers’ evolving taste for fashion,which is moving away from the water.
In fact, 95% of surf apparel sales are now sold at traditional retailers, according to our Otis College fashion marketing instructor Rob Valerio. Only about 10% of consumers actually participate in the sport from which the clothes derive.
Look at Irvine-based Billabong USA: These days, sales of its wetsuits comprise only about 5% of its growing business. Billabong consumers are fashion-savvy and might be in their teens on up to 50 years old. The surfwear companies have been successful selling the SoCal beach attitude and image that these consumers want.
But what next?
Otis has a unique vantage point from which to view apparel business trends. Each year we bring design visionaries from Billabong, Quiksilver, Hurley, Pacific Sunwear, Lunada Bay, OP, Volcom and many other OC companies to serve as mentors and to sponsor projects with students in order to incubate new fashion ideas.
In turn, these companies have a generous history of hiring our Otis graduates and providing scholarships that ensure their future talent supply.
Recently, our fashion design students worked with two well-known OC-based surf brands. In both cases, the students were directed to research and design without an emphasis on surf culture, but rather take inspiration from “1970s rock concert posters from The Fillmore” and “vintage Hollywood pinup girls.”
At the annual fashion show where we present student work, these same design mentors requested absolutely no “surf” music for their students’ runway presentations.
At the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association’s recent annual summit in Baja, “reinvention” was the buzzword.
“Getting everyone to expand their minds and learn something new is the main priority,” said Dick Baker, SIMA president (and an Otis College trustee).
Apparently, the tide is out on traditional surf themes.
There’s an irony to the distancing from the classic surfer image of the past five or so decades. That source is a big part of what built all these businesses to begin with.
But the heart of the industry is still intact and healthy. People in OC really do live the “California lifestyle.” Casual apparel company execs still don blue jeans, T-shirts and caps (and go surfing on lunch breaks). Designers are still inspired by the many facets of contemporary surfer (or skateboarder, snowboarder, etc.) culture.
They popularized the look. It’s just that in order to stay on top, these companies now are branching out into competitive contemporary fashion, pursuing other trend tangents,music, art, technology, recycled materials, even vintage couture,in addition to what they already do best.
And it’s not that board sport designers have stopped drawing from sources like surfing. It’s that they’re also drawing from the larger world of fashion as well as worldly themes.
In addition to the whole California casual lifestyle, they’re interested in hybrid forms of fashion. And they’re not afraid to angle for the high ground of fashion.
Take Hurley.
The action sports brand owned by Nike Inc. is focusing on its women’s business and giving it a decidedly urban spin, bringing in design talent from outside OC and presenting buyers with items like an edgy double-breasted pea coat and not a Hurley logo in sight. “Innovate and elevate” is Hurley’s new mantra.
Essentially, companies and consumers have become more sophisticated. Companies,and OC in general,want and need to be defined by more than just a one-note reputation.
Evolution demands change, and the demands of branding are expansive in nature.
But it goes both ways: Paris couture house Chanel recently showed fashion models carrying surfboards emblazoned with the Chanel logo in a collection inspired by designer Karl Lagerfeld’s vision of the active lifestyle in California.
What’s clearer yet than these nuances of image consciousness is the growing enormity of the OC apparel industry, and the changing relationship dynamics between OC board sports apparel and the international fashion world.
When I first moved to Southern California in the 1970s, there was the L.A. apparel industry and then there was the OC apparel industry. As they say, ne’er the twain shall meet.
But over the years, OC and L.A. have grown together. Talent is shared, and we finally recognize and claim each other as kin.
So now these surf-rooted companies, having established themselves here firmly, have moved on to become players on the international stage.
According to the California Fashion Association, this fashion conglomerate plays the leading role in the California apparel industry, which generates $24 billion in wholesale volume. That’s the largest in the country, exceeding New York in apparel and textile employment by more than 45,000 employees. Billabong’s products are sold in more than 100 countries, with international sales driving much of its growth, including such places as Japan, Brazil and Europe.
With yearly revenue of well more than $2 billion, Quiksilver’s international sales are on the rise as they target such markets as Central and South America, Germany, Russia, the Middle East, and China.
So where is all this change headed? How will these authentic OC brands mature and appeal to an increasingly diverse group of consumers?
No one can say for sure. At a certain critical mass, it becomes increasingly hard to be so OC casual. Still, the industry seems fundamentally connected to its base, and I don’t doubt that these preeminent innovators will pick out a successful future and ride it all the way in.
Brantley is the fashion department chair at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Many of her students have gone on to work for OC brands such as Pacific Sunwear, Roxy, Volcom, Hurley, OP, Billabong and Quiksilver.
