Surfwear Firms Jump on the Skateboard Bandwagon

Will success spoil the surfwear companies?

As the industry has swelled to 300 to 400 companies--a third of them in Orange County beach towns--surfwear manufacturers have had to become more competitive.

One way is by introducing new clothing lines. By coming up with a new label--particularly if the name appeals to skateboarders--manufacturers can attract more customers.

At the same time, a fresh label can help surfwear manufacturers overcome the danger of being too successful--the so-called OP problem.

Tustin-based Ocean Pacific reigned for years as the West’s leading clothier of the casual beach set. But today, the $380-million company has developed an image among the surf shop crowd as a tired line for the less-than-hip. By appealing to a larger consumer base, OP fell out of favor with the influential, grass-roots surf shops that set the pace for beachwear fashion.

Easily Overexposed

The reason is that clothing lines can easily become overexposed. It is cool to be different. It is not cool to be wearing the same thing as any nerdy kid who shovels snow in the Midwest.

And when the small-but-trendy specialty merchants find that customers are ignoring a line because it is too well liked by the wrong people, it is not long before it disappears from the racks--and the manufacturer starts losing influence.

To shore up its image in the surf shops, OP last year introduced K-38, a new label designed to appeal to the specialty stores that abandoned OP when it expanded nationwide. But 14 months later, K-38 has reportedly all but disappeared locally, except in OP’s own stores. And OP, specialty merchants say, still has a big image problem.

OP’s competitors aren’t immune to the same concern.

Within the last 18 months, several Southland surfwear companies have brought out new lines that appeal to a new group of customers who prefer to ride skateboards instead of waves.

Costa Mesa-based Billabong has Bad Billy’s. Tustin’s Catchit has introduced Skatehardware and SK8 (pronounced “skate”). Life’s a Beach has its Bad Boy line.

Then There Was Bash

And just last month, Costa Mesa-based Gotcha Sportswear--one of the most successful manufacturers of the surfer, beachy look--introduced Bash.

It is probably none too soon.

“A lot of guys shy away from Quiksilver and Gotcha because they’re in all the malls,” said Mitch Muniz, the 22-year-old manager of Galaxy Sports in South Laguna.

“You can walk down any mall in suburban USA and see Gotcha in 17 shops,” added Dale Smith, owner of Go Skate, a chain of seven specialty stores that don’t carry Gotcha. “Why would I want to handle the same thing that every other store handles?”

Gotcha had estimated sales of $60 million to $70 million last year. But as 9-year-old Gotcha expanded its line to appeal to the “weekend warrior” as well as the hard-core surfer, it has become more middle of the road. The label is now carried by such tony retailers as Nordstrom and R.H. Macy and JW Robinson’s.

“Everybody still likes Gotcha,” said Andy Thies, manager of Laguna Surf & Sport. But “they make stuff that’s more mainstream. And people at the beach aren’t really mainstream.”

That is where Bash comes in.

Dual Appeal Intended

Bash is intended to appeal to surfers and skaters. But unlike the Gotcha label, Bash is being marketed exclusively in the small specialty shops.

“Every surf kid rides a skateboard,” said Gotcha’s president, Michael Tomson. “But the hard-core skater--the guy who competes and takes it seriously--is looking for a distinct identity. That identity is more radical, more punk oriented, more adventurous and more aggressive.”

So clothes with the Bash label look rougher--with lots of blacks, olives and grays rather than the usual beachwear colors of blue, aqua and white. And the fabric images relate to the street--showing, for instance, barbed wire, bones or the suggestion of bombed-out buildings.

Bash is expected to add a comparatively tiny $1.5 million to Gotcha’s estimated $90 million in sales this year. But Tomson said it could grow to as much as $15 million over the next three years.

“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that skateboarding is an emerging subculture,” Tomson said.