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britishboardculture · 9 years

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Brand Profile: 'South Clothing Company'

This is the first in our new series of UK board sports brand profiles. In this first issue we speak with Patch Sullivan about his Brighton based skate company 'South Clothing'

TVSC: Hi Patch, coud you please give us an insight into when, how, where and why South Clothing began?

Patch: The company was founded in the summer of 2013 in Brighton UK. I first started the company with just me and Ollie Ball (our Graphic designer). We had always been passionate about skateboarding and fashion and had been talking about doing a company for a while throughout 2012, throwing around various different ideas. In 2013 I decided on the name South and we released our first collection in the summer of that year.

TVSC: What is the company ethos?

Patch: Our company ethos is to create high quality simplistic products that represent our love of skateboard, art and design culture.

TVSC team pick: the O.G. backprint in grey.

TVSC: What sets you apart from your competitors?

Patch: I feel like a lot of companies these days will just create a logo and just plaster it on everything, in different colour ways, just kind of shoving it down your throat. We try and shy away from that kind of corporation type stuff. We like to keep our products simple and stylish. We're are always creating new ideas and designs for new products to keep the company fresh and exciting.

TVSC: What do you most enjoy about skating in the UK ? And most dislike?

Patch: Skateboarding in the UK can be pretty stressful at times. The weather is always bad and the spots aren't that great (especially down here in Brighton!) Other than that everything else is pretty good. I think the skateboarding looks a lot less contrived in the UK than in some LA / California type videos, which in my opinion looks a lot better aesthetically. I think the amount of quality skateparks in the UK has also got a lot better in the last few years which is great, we finally seem to be catching up with America in terms of that.

TVSC: How do you support UK athletes and the wider skate/surf/snow community? Which athletes do you currently have on your pro team?

Patch: Currently we don't have a pro team. We support a few of the local skateboarders in the South of the UK. We currently have a small team including Ollie Smith, Dan Fisher and Laurie Kelly. We're hoping this year to expand our team further and put out a lot more content in terms of skate videos and photographs.

TVSC: Where are you manufacturing your products?

Patch: Our products are currently all produced in the UK. We work with a group of amazing guys based in Worcester who take care of all our screen printing and embroidery. All of our design is carried out in Brighton and then transferred up there to create the physical product.

TVSC: What do you see for the future of your company?

Patch: In the future we are looking to expand the company to incorporate more products and collections that will be dropping this year. Hopefully we are going to get more involved in the community here and we're looking into sponsoring some skateboard events in the South during 2015. We are also looking into the possibility of beginning the process of making our first full length skate video this year and hopefully releasing it at the end of 2015 if all goes to plan.

TVSC: What do you see for the future of the industry in the UK?

Patch: I can see the industry just continuing to improve in the UK. We've got all the facilities now and there is a lot of up and coming talent from all around the UK. There's also a lot of good companies and shops supporting the different scenes around the UK. Things feel a lot less stagnant than in past years and I feel the different styles coming through and the different scenes from around the UK are creating a kind of early 90's notalgia with a lot of change occuring in the skateboard world. Hopefully this will keep the industry more exciting and things will keep improving during 2015.

TVSC: Cool, and where can we check out your videos/news/stuff?

Patch: We have Instagram and Facebook accounts which you can follow us on. @southclothingco on Instagram and South Clothing Company page on Facebook. We are also going to be regularly updating our Youtube as well this year which you can subscribe to by searching our name southclothingcompany on youtube. Thanks Patch!

You can check out the current South Clothing collection at www.TVSC.co/collections/south-clothing-co

#uklongboarding #ukskate #ukskateboarding #skate #skateboarding #skatelife #skateeverydamnday #skater #skatewear #ukskatewear #ukbrand #ukbrands #skaterowned #supportskaterowned #britishboardculture #britishskate #ukskating

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britishboardculture · 9 years

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County Limits - The Severn Bore

by Wavelength

Now I know what you’re thinking… but no, just no. I thought the same thing once upon a time.

I mean, yes, what we have here is a pretty spectacularly perfect little A-frame, more glassy than a fight in Wetherspoons. Yes, no-one is on it and do you know what? Next time it breaks it will most likely be empty again. And yes, this is the very same Severn Bore that you’re used to seeing on TV as a foot high surge of white water slowly advancing an army of longboarders and kayakers who have no issues with personal space. There was nothing freakishly special about this day in Gloucestershire, so if you’re in any way surprised by the freshwater river ripability of the Bore, don’t be, because yes, it breaks like this every time. But no, you shouldn’t grab your 5’11” and camp out on the river bank waiting to score this peak all to yourself next time the tide is big enough. I mean you could I suppose, but if all you’re going to think about now is dropping in and doing a massive layback on that section, then I might as well finish the story here. If this wave has seduced you into thinking the Severn Bore is a shortboard destination, you’re missing the point. Let me explain…

There have been several notable attempts to shred the Bore over the years. Motivated by the novelty of getting a turn shot on a wave with cows grazing in the background, Californian surfer Jon Rose scoured the river on a boat, looking for banks and meandering bends that might coax a clean face out of the Bore. More recently, Russ Winter demolished the face of the wave, this time using a ski to make sure he got to the best peak. A handful of others have tried to introduce high performance surfing to the River Severn with varying degrees of success. All of them have missed the point.

It’s a misty, silent break of dawn. At a small car park in the sleepy village of Newnham, the river races past towards the sea as a burger van backs into its prime retail space for the morning. Mmm… bacon rolls. It’s still early, the Bore isn’t due here for another hour, but people are starting to arrive. The tide times are known down to the exact minute, but as everyone tells me, the river is mysterious and unpredictable, sometimes sending the Bore half an hour early or late for no obvious reason. Severn Bore surfers don’t make a habit of turning up late.

At almost 50 feet, the tidal range of the Severn Estuary is one of the largest in the world, second only to that of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. During the highest tides of the year, the water pouring in from the Bristol Channel funnels upstream forming a wave that pushes against the river current, and depending on the nuances in the river bed can be a line of white water from bank to bank, an unbroken swell, or a filthy A-frame.

Ten minutes down the road, but another hour by river, a middle-class riot is threatening to erupt if the Severn Bore Inn doesn’t open its doors for breakfast soon. The car park is full of hungry surfers who have spent the night in their vans, crowds of curious spectators, and the Gloucestershire Hells Angels faction. There’s still three quarters of an hour before the Bore is due, but equipment is being unloaded and surfers are mingling with kayakers like everything is forgotten and we are all friends again. It makes me feel dirty. I guess I still haven’t forgiven that goatboater that put me in casualty five years ago.

Around the time I was getting my skull x-rayed, the Severn saw one of its busiest days ever, with hundreds of surfers turning up to celebrate 50 years since the Bore was first ridden. As the pioneer of surfing the Severn, Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, or ‘Mad Jack’, set the bar for ‘Bore eccentricity’ pretty high. He fought throughout World War II armed with a longbow and a sword, becoming the only English soldier to kill the enemy by arrow during the war. He went on to receive the Military Cross by leading a charge against a German garrison, throwing a grenade at them and chasing it whilst playing the bagpipes. After developing a passion for surfing whilst instructing at a land-air warfare school in Australia, Mad Jack returned to Britain and designed his own 16ft surfboard specifically to ride the Bore, becoming the first person to do so in 1955. Later in life he was known for randomly throwing his briefcase out of the train window every evening. On his deathbed he explained he was flinging it into his garden so he didn’t have to carry it home from the station.

A bright blue Skoda bumps to a halt on the verge of the main road, and a lad in a bright blue wetsuit jumps out and grabs a bright blue bodyboard from the boot. His rock-pooling shoes are black, but they have blue details. He crosses the busy road and joins a surfer on the other side who is adjusting his ginger afro wig. Today, the eccentricity continues. Mad Jack would be proud.

I push my way through the on-lookers assembled on the bank of the river and walk downstream at the same speed that surfers allow the current to take them towards their take off point. Perhaps half a mile down from the crowd, I notice people paddle towards the east bank and either grab a tree branch or stand up in the mud, to stop themselves from being taken any further. Apart from the current, the river is placid, flat, silent. A group of first-timers from London gather further upstream across from the spectators, shouting over to them as if they’re the warm up act before the main event. National Director for Christian Surfers, Phil Williams, jogs up to where I am perched, along with welsh author Tom Anderson and his girlfriend Breige Lawrence. My watch says it is only five minutes away, but the three of them look relaxed, Phil has surfed the Bore many times before. “We had it pretty good down at Newnham, but it’s running a bit late,” Phil explains before paddling across and joining the patient surfers on the other side. Less patient, perhaps even nervous, one of the Londoners shouts out to the crowd, “This is boring!” The pun seems to be missed by everyone including him, but this waiting around and being prepared seems to be a big part of the Severn Bore experience… he’s right, this IS boring.

A yell comes from someone on a SUP way down river, the mirror-like water in the distance is bending and moving. As a wave, it looks small at first, but as it hits the east bank where Phil, Tom and Breige are waiting, it jacks up and starts breaking. They push off from the side, start paddling, and the wave bears down on them. I stop watching. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something so surreal, so unexpected that I almost forget I’m there to take photos. From the middle of the river, a lump of glassy water has risen out of nowhere and broken as a perfect A-frame, with a hollow right peeling off it into the east bank crowd. After a few seconds, it’s gone, and a line of whooping watercraft wobbles past me ungraciously. Ever since Mad Jack demonstrated the potential for surfing greater distances than would be possible at a beach or even a point break, bore surfers have become obsessed with pushing their rides further, either to break personal bests or world records. The untrained eye would see a lineup full of battered kook boards instead of carefully chosen workhorses that have enough volume to glide through flats and over flotsam. In 2006, railway engineer Steve King set an unofficial record when he rode for an estimated 7.6 miles, staying on the same wave for almost an hour. But the difficulties in verifying the distance prevented his achievement from entering the Guinness Book of Records.

Out of the water, Phil is stoked. His ride went on for almost two and a half minutes, which with the Bore running at around 10mph means he surfed just short of half a mile. I’m happy for him of course, but I’m more interested in the wave that he and everyone else missed. “Oh yeah, that right. It’s pretty sweet looking isn’t it? I reckon if someone took a fish out there they might even get a sneaky barrel on one of the better days,” Phil tells me. I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing, “So you’ve seen that wave there before Phil?” He laughs and replies, “It does that every time!” I’m starting to feel a bit mental, I just don’t get why everyone ignores what is a sick, peeling wave and instead opts for straight-handing with 30 other people on a never-ending wall of white water. Phil sees my frustration and smiles. “Greg, you’re missing the point… Let me explain…”

#Severn bore #surf #uksurf #uksurfing #surfing

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britishboardculture · 9 years

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Brits on Board

by Shelley Jones

New video series Brits On Board showcases the grassroots UK snowboarding community.

Brits On Board is a video series about the girls’ UK snowboarding scene created by skater, snowboarder, writer and founder of creative agency Neon Stash Hannah Bailey.

With the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi poised to kick off in a couple of days, Hannah – whose previous projects include DIY design pop-up Tie-Dye High Five and skate photography exhibition Anywhere Road – started the series to show the grassroots side of snow action and encourage others to get involved.

We caught up with the London-based ball of energy to find out more.

What exactly is Brits On Board? Brits On Board is, hopefully, an informative and inspirational video project I’ve just started working on to showcase the British girls’ snowboarding scene. I thought it deserved a specific platform to show it off and hopefully give it a boost.

Why did you start it? The boardsports world is what I am passionate about and I have spent years working in the industry meeting amazing people, so I thought it was about time to give something back. Most snowboard content is the pros going big and doing tricks, which is inspiring and great to watch, but I want to make snowboarding accessible to get more girls involved. I thought it be cool to get to the grassroots and tell stories that girls can relate to. I’m often on adventures with amazing ladies who are getting on boards, so now I take my camera with me.

How do you hope it will have an impact? I hope that people, not just girls, will be inspired most of all, and that girls specifically will watch it and feel like they can do it too. It would be great to directly influence girls to get on a board!

What’s the girls snowboard scene in the UK like? It’s an amazing culture to be a part of or even aware of. It’s small and inclusive, anyone is welcome to get involved and reap the benefits! Go to a dome or go to Scotland, it’s amazing the accessibility of it in the UK despite not having a lot of real snow. With the Olympics coming up and girls like Jenny Jones and Aimee Fuller heading to represent us in slopestyle, it’s an exciting time for snowboarding.

Who’s involved in Brits On Board and what does everyone do? Like a lot of projects, I run it through my creative platform Neon Stash, and at the same time collaborate with lots of different people to make it happen. Wherever I go to film I have been linking up with other videographers and creatives, to get more people on board and strengthen the project. I love to work with likeminded people and just have fun with it.

How can people get involved/show support? At the moment, you can follow the episodes as they get created on the Brits On Board Vimeo channel and follow the stories (or add to them) using the #BoBShred hashtag. But everyone is invited to get involved, send an idea, submit some content or collaborate.

What have been the challenges in bringing Brits On Board to life? Well first off, when I came up with the plan to make a video project, I didn’t even have a digital camera! I literally acquired one the morning of Freeze [Ski, Snowboard and Music Festival], where I filmed the first episode. My background in capturing things is analogue, with 35mm cameras, and then my iPhone every now and then. So I’ve had to embrace technology and learn as I go. It’s a side aim of the project to develop my skills and it’s always handy to know how to film/edit when you are in the industry. It makes it a very worthwhile and fulfilling thing to work on.

What have been the major inspirations? Mahfia TV, the girls’ boardsports platform based in the US has been a major inspiration. I met Kim, the founder, at the X Games in Barcelona last summer and I thought it was great what she had created. Also I have been inspired by the vibe in the industry, the fact that more girls are getting involved and just its positivity. Skating and snowboarding are the things that make me happy.

What’s the future for Brits On Board? It’s early days so I’m just enjoying making it for now. But, come summertime, I’d like to cross it over into the skate world and in the long term it’d be great for Brits On Board to evolve into a general platform for girls skate, snow and adventuring. But I never know what I’m up to next…

You can watch episodes of Brits On Board on the official Vimeo channel.

#snowboarding #snowboardgirl #girlswhoshred #uksnow #snow boarding #boardinglife

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britishboardculture · 9 years

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An amazing photo from @passengerclothing to start 2015. Thanks to everyone for all their support in 2014 from all of us at TVSC #BritishBoardCulture

#britishboardculture

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britishboardculture · 9 years

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Five ways to get warm after a surf

by Alfie Hayward

As you might have noticed, it’s winter. Which means stonking waves, empty line ups and dawnies at midday.

It also means bitter winds, red noses and your fingers being so frozen you can’t do up your flies after you get changed, leading to an awkward moment when you ask a stranger for help.

N.B. It’s okay to do this. Society is the one who’s weird.

But it is possible to get the best of both worlds in these cold months. There’s nothing like the feeling of warming up after an epic glassy winter session. But what’s the best way? Here are our top five in no particular order.

I’m sure you have some favourite ways to get warm too, so chuck them in the comments below. It’s the only way we’ll learn.

A nice mug of hot chocolate

This is one of those moments when carrying a thermos of hot chocolate makes you a gangster. Seriously, if you control the cocoa supplies in the car park people will step over their own mother for a taste of that sweet, chocolaty elixir.

On the downside it requires a lot of forward planning. Like owning a thermos. And if you’re anything like me and count putting on trousers in the morning as a logistical victory, you’re probably not cut out for making hot chocolate before heading to the beach.

Fire it up

Winter has this annoying habit of taking the sun away just as the good waves start rolling in. And night surfing, while badass, is difficult and a bit pointless.

But this does present a nice opportunity to build a fire on the beach and get your blood flowing as you hold your hands dangerously close to the flames.

Hell, bring some marshmallows and a ukulele and turn it into a picture-perfect after-surf party. There’s nothing wrong with being a stereotype if it comes with roasted marshmallows.

Stay in your wetsuit

This can work if you plan it right. What you want is a short walk back to the car, a not too long drive home and some good heaters.

If you have all these you can actually have a very comfortable drive home in your wetsuit and then the glorious, transcendent feeling of taking it off in the shower.

Pro tip: Stopping on the way home to do some shopping can make you look a bit silly. But not as much as getting to the checkout and realising your wallet isn’t inside your wetsuit.

Pub?

Contrary to popular belief, alcohol doesn’t make you warmer. It actually inhibits the blah blah beer is good. And a nice pint in the local pub is the most comfortable way to thaw out those fingertips.

So grab a big handled glass of ale, throw some coins in the jukebox and regale your fellow patrons with tales of the monster waves you barely just made it out of.

Sex

Don’t lie. You were thinking it too.

If you’re lucky enough to have a partner who shares your love for paddling around in the freezing ocean for hours on end, post surf sex is without doubt the best way to get warm. And it ticks off two of your three daily S-words; Surf, Sex, Sandwich.

It might feel a bit like dogging. And it is. But anyone in the car park will be so focussed on getting changed you could be standing on your bonnet dressed as Big Bird in drag and nobody would care. Plus by the time you’ve blasted the heaters and huffed and puffed your way out of your wetsuits the car will be so fogged up you’ll have all the privacy you need.

Admittedly it can take a while to warm up to the, shall we say, operational temperature. But it’s more fun than doing star jumps.

Happy Thawing!

#uksurf #surf #surfing #love surf #uksurfing #coldwatersurf

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britishboardculture · 9 years

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The Endless Winter - Cold Water Surfing

By David Bianic

“An ode to the sun, sand, bodies and waves” is how Times Magazine started their review of Endless Summer in 1966. Unwillingly, with this cult film Bruce Brown encapsulated the image of surfing in a cliché quest for a perpetual summer that would define the modern imagery of surfing. Carefree, eccentric, colourful, the Endless Summer surfers also became the icons of an emerging industry.

The movement was characterised by clothes expressing exoticism and a certain post-surf languor. At the time, the pursuit of an eternal summer was borne of a climato-technical reality: the almost total absence of wetsuits amongst northern hemisphere surfers where the seasons are more pronounced. Almost half a century later, after being sought, found, then lost, surfwear is coming back to its roots that stretch back to the sixties as has been noticed over the past 12-18 months.

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

Over-cautious, the industry’s big guns only lately dared to tackle the realities of surfing in cold water head on. Only O’Neill clearly distinguished themselves by levering the Santa Cruz-based brand’s Northern Californian geographic heritage through creator-icon Jack O’Neill. In the same way, surf media needed a breath of fresh air at the start of the new millennium as it was saturated by iconography based on palm trees, boardshorts and clear waters, which had become a deep annoyance. Exoticism took on a new face with a new surge of surf trips to the wild spots of the northern hemisphere such as Ireland, Scotland, Lofoten, Iceland, Alaska… Various sporting events followed this, contributing to establishing a trend for Cold Water Surfing (CWS): the aptly-named Cold Water Series, created by O’Neill (a circuit of the WQS) as well as the Nixon Surf Challenge held in Norway and more recently in Kamchatka on the eastern edge of Russia.

The response from the industry on the technical market was swift: R&D efforts on neoprene gave rise to warmer, more supple, more everything wetsuits, and to heated models and accessories (the Rip Curl H-Bomb, Quiksilver’s Heat Vest). As proof of this craze for Cold Water Surfing, neoprene sales have enjoyed a notable boost but most of all a second wind. “These days winter wetsuits are purchased all year-round which translates into better revenue in summer months”, affirms Mike Pickering, commercial director at GUL. “Thanks to this CWS trend we have been able to stock winter wetsuits all year round, this means models with high added value”, explains Mike.

This trend for more consistent sales throughout the year is also confirmed in the south with wetsuits from the French brand Madness proving successful: “More people are surfing and not just in summer. Naturally the neoprene market is improving with more and more surfers in the water in winter,” explains Benoît Brecq, marketing director at Hoff Distribution who are behind the wetsuit brand. Perhaps even more so than in summer, the search for quality products is more intense; surfing in cold water holds no place for mediocrity. In this way CWS has naturally pushed its clientele towards the top-of-the-range segment.

"We’ve certainly noticed more and more surfers spending their hard earned money in the winter to go all out and buy a top of the range suit and then for summer use making do with maybe a mid range suit”, confirms Mark Brown, C-Skins Technical Director. On the same page, he noticed that the winter time is when surfers do their homework and make highly informed choices when it comes to wetsuit purchases.

Even Madness, whose positioning is mostly around the entry-level, can attest to the good health of premium wetsuits: “As for the top-of-the-range, our Unlimited is selling pretty well, particularly thanks to its faultless quality and ultra-competitive price”, confirms Benoît.

RELY ON LOCALS

Winter neoprene R&D has also become the focus of brand marketing. In order to point out the unnatural link between customers and wetsuits made in Asia, the development of these models is associated with a more local dimension: “The cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean are our laboratory and we spend as much time in the water to improve our wetsuits as we do in our design offices,” Mike from GUL proudly announces.

“Getting the products tested by the team is the only true way”, affirms Tom Ellyat, Marketing Director of British neoprene and clothing brand Osprey. The same rings true for Benoît from Madness: “Our riders spend hours and hours in the water. As a result, a lot of people see them and become interested in our products.” The same goes for the general exposure from the Malloy brothers’ surf trips to the Antarctic or from French female Lea Brassy’s trip to Iceland and Norway that were worth all those pages of advertising for Patagonia. Field testing becomes advertising. Finisterre will combine the two by selling 2014-2015 winter test models at discounted prices and getting people to participate in feedback sessions that will help them finalise next year’s autumn-winter models.

O’Neill have put in place an online platform dedicated to the technical aspects of their products: “In three clicks of your iPhone, you know more than your average surf shop vendor (they’ll appreciate that!).” The wetsuit brand C-Skins aren’t shy of going to great lengths with their Deep Freeze Tests wind tunnels: “We are using temperature detecting thermocouples to record internal body temperatures as well as infrared cameras to measure surface heat loss”, explains Mark Brown, C-Skins’ technical manager. With a limited budget to get across to surfers what goes into making their wetsuits and accessories, they had “to get imaginative” and spent “countless hours producing more in depth website information as well as online video campaigns and insider information”.

A SPECIFIC RANGE

This movement has provided the means for companies who have dedicated “heart and soul” to Cold Water Surfing to emerge. Amongst them is Finisterre, a brand with meaningful geographic roots in St Agnes, Cornwall, England. “The company was founded by cold water surfers in order to meet the demands of people wishing to travel to world class waves located in cold environments. If, in the middle of January, you don’t have the right clothes on an island in Norway or in the Hebrides, you won’t survive and that’s where Finisterre comes in”, says the brand’s Marketing Director Ernest Capbert.

Ernest puts his finger on one of the special things about Cold Water Surfing, even though there have been thick wetsuits for cold water for almost half a century, they were built for surfing in northern California or Australia, destinations where the temperature of the water can drop to under 10 degrees but with a temperate, if not warm, climate outside. “CWS requires two types of product: clothes for living in these wet, windy or glacial places and products for surfing there”, sums up Ernest Capbert.

Pretty well mapped out, Cold Water Surfing’s neoprene range is a business that is rolling. For now as well as for the future, the real issue lies in the clothing market: “If you take a look at the products made by surf brands for CWS, the quality standards are far from adequate. The places where Cold Water Surfing happens require bomb proof products and as a result surfers are turning towards brands outside the (boardsports) industry to find this kind of item,” reveals Ernest. Indeed, either surfers turn towards reputable outdoor brands in the same mould as Patagonia, or they pinch from the ski/snow range of boardsports brands: “Luckily we have been in the snow market for 25 years”, rejoices Jan Lindeboom, senior product manager of O’Neill Europe. “Our technical teams have spent their careers making jackets for snow, they are specialised in insulation and ergonomics, in impermeable puffers, clothes that breathe and other waterproof stitching. Of course, it’s more work but it’s also much nicer to do.”

WHEN OUTDOOR MEETS SURFWEAR

Most surfers don’t want to walk around with flashy, oversized snowboard jackets on their backs… At O’Neill, the response was pretty original, to fuse two internal design teams together, snow and surf to come up with new technical clothes. “This new department produced our first Adventure Series collection three years ago,” a range whose turnover has doubled each season. “It now represents 10% of our turnover, we should have started earlier,” smiles Jan from O’Neill.

Other big names from the industry such as Patagonia didn’t take this route, preferring instead to rely on existing products that already appeal to an older clientele who don’t need to identify themselves with the ‘surfer’ style or who even want to distance themselves from it. “Patagonia has made a name for itself by producing the ultimate products for extreme conditions in the mountains,” reinforces Gabe Davis, surf manager of Patagonia Europe and renowned surfer who grew up in the cold waters of Newcastle. “For us it’s easier to borrow from our other technical ranges- mountain, trail or even fly fishing - and to offer specific products to cold water surfers,” adds Gabe.

Proof of the CWS phenomenon if we need it; clothing sales are intimately linked to neoprene: “We have noticed that sales from the Adventure Series collection were directly related to wetsuit deliveries”, explains Jan Lindeboom at O’Neill, “especially January-February and August-September.” O’Neill also state that they sell jackets and fleeces all through the year, making an increase in jacket sales in summer of over a million Euros per year. “Of course, these products are more expensive but consumers are prepared to pay a few more Euros for a nice jacket that keeps you warm and dry, especially if it lasts more than one season.”

FROM ALASKA TO AMSTERDAM

Just like the traditional surfwear market, sales are not limited to core participants and we are now seeing fashions from CWS reaching a much wider audience. The values associated with CWS speak to these clients: “Even non-surfers wear boardshorts on holiday. It’s the same for Cold Water Surfing, non-surfers appreciate values such as travel, nature, living off the beaten track and the beauty of surfing in cold water on perfect pristine waves,” affirms Ernest from Finisterre. O’Neill confirm this CWS knock-on effect amongst the wider public: “If you show an image of our team Rider Damien Castera in the rain on a beach in Alaska, everyone understands that if you wear the same jacket in town then you’ll stay dry and warm. In truth we sell this type of jacket in large numbers in shops in the middle of Amsterdam and the big towns in Germany”, adds Jan Lindeboom.

“Cold Water Surfing is not a fad or a seasonal market”, concludes Gabe Davis from Patagonia, “it’s about providing products suited to the places where people want to surf and sometimes the best waves are in glacial regions”. While surfwear brands have managed to build their success on the image of surfing in tropical places, everything points to Cold Water Surfing opening up new opportunities for growth. You’ll just have to throw caution to the wind, down to business!

#coldwatersurf #uksurf #surfing #surf #uksurfing

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