High fashion’s latest obsession with wave culture has local surfers checking their bank accounts nervously

The Runway Discovers The Lineup

The high fashion world has officially discovered surfing, and Southern California’s surf community has responded the way it responds to most outside attention: with a mixture of pride, suspicion, and a strong urge to ask how much everything costs. Recent menswear runway shows have leaned heavily into beach and wave imagery, complete with sandy runways and dramatic barrel backdrops, a creative direction covered extensively within the surf press as evidence that wave culture has officially crossed over into the world of luxury design.

Local surfers, many of whom own exactly one wetsuit purchased on a Black Friday sale roughly six years ago, have greeted this development with cautious curiosity. “It’s cool that surfing’s getting some love from the fashion world, I guess,” said one Venice regular, examining a photo of a runway look inspired by beach culture on his phone. “But also, my actual wetsuit has a hole in it that I patched with a bike tire tube, so I don’t think I’m the target customer here.”

Wave Pools And Wardrobe Budgets

Part of the crossover has been driven by the continued rise of engineered wave pools, which have made surfing accessible to people whose relationship with the ocean was previously limited to looking at it from a hotel balcony. As wave pools have opened up surfing to new audiences, including several from the entertainment and fashion industries, the sport’s aesthetic has increasingly found its way into runway collections, ad campaigns, and, inevitably, price tags that would make a boat payment look reasonable.

“I’ve seen board shorts online recently that cost more than my last car,” said local surf instructor Marco Delgado, who teaches beginner lessons out of a modest van that has, by his own admission, seen better decades. “I’m happy surfing is having a moment. I would just like it noted for the record that most of us are still doing this in shorts from the discount rack, and the ocean, as far as I can tell, does not care.”

Local Shops Feel The Ripple Effect, Mostly Just Amusement

Surf shop owner Trina Bellweather says she has noticed a small uptick in customers asking about “the fashion surf thing,” typically followed by considerable disappointment upon learning that her shop does not, in fact, stock anything remotely resembling a runway collection. “I had a guy come in looking for something like what he saw online, and I had to explain that we mostly sell wax, leashes, and boards that are going to get dinged up within a week regardless of how much they cost,” she said. “He left with a leash. I consider that a win.”

There is, longtime observers note, a certain irony in an industry built on getting saltwater in uncomfortable places suddenly becoming a symbol of aspirational luxury, but surf culture has weathered stranger crossovers before, and most locals seem content to let the fashion world have its moment while quietly continuing to surf in whatever happens to be dry and available that morning. “If some designer wants to charge four thousand dollars for a wetsuit inspired by what we’re already wearing, more power to them,” said Delgado. “I’ll be over here in the one with the bike tire patch, getting exactly the same waves.”

Substance Over Style, As Always

Ultimately, most Southern California surfers agree that the sport’s newfound fashion cachet is, at best, a mildly amusing sideshow to the actual business of finding a good wave and not getting run over by a beginner on a longboard. The ocean, notoriously indifferent to branding, continues to deliver waves free of charge to anyone willing to paddle out, runway collection or bike-tire patch alike. Bohiney Magazine will continue tracking the surf-fashion crossover closely, mostly for the entertainment value.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

Secondhand Gear Culture Pushes Back

Not everyone in the surf community is thrilled about the fashion world’s arrival. A small but vocal contingent of longtime locals has doubled down on secondhand gear as a point of pride, swapping boards, wetsuits, and accessories through informal networks that predate the internet and show no signs of caring about it now. “There’s a whole underground economy of guys trading gear out of the back of their trucks,” said one such trader, who asked that his truck not be described in enough detail to be identified by the local parking enforcement community, a request that, given recent events, seemed entirely reasonable.

The Ocean, For Its Part, Remains Unimpressed

Marine conditions, of course, do not respond to marketing budgets, and the ocean has shown no particular preference for luxury board shorts over discount rack ones, delivering waves with the same blunt indifference it always has. Longtime locals find some comfort in this. “The wave doesn’t know what you’re wearing,” said Delgado. “It’s the one honest judge left in this whole industry.” Whether the fashion world’s interest in surfing represents a lasting cultural shift or a passing seasonal trend remains to be seen, though most locals suspect it will fade the moment the next trend cycle arrives.

Fashion trends come and go with the tide, but the ocean, mercifully, has never once checked anybody’s outfit before delivering a set wave.

For more mildly humorous reading, see betootaadvocate.com.