Nike Goes Fishing in the Surf Market
For the last 20 years, idiosyncratic Southern California companies founded by surfers and other beach enthusiasts have controlled beach fashion. They do their job so well that active wear is now big business, and large corporations are moving into the market.
Enter Nike, the first out-of-state company to set its sights on the beach. The Oregon-based giant has delivered its first collection aimed directly at the surf market.
The new line is called Aqua Gear and includes vests and shorts for surfing, windsurfing and sailing, designed to protect sportsmen in water as cold as 60 degrees. The colors are bright, the fabrics are innovative, including Supplex , a nylon material that feels like cotton but dries quickly, and Polarlite , a polyester with a velour feel and a fleece backing. For the more casual beachcomber, there are $130 reversible nylon pullovers in neon green, yellow and blue in addition to jackets and brightly colored volleyball shorts shorts. The clothes will be in stores, including May Co., Go Sport in Century City, and Nike stores.
Because Aqua Gear reflects Nike’s clean, conservative styling, their shorts in solid colors with contrasting pocket trims are low-key compared to some of the more fashion-conscious volleyball lines.
Gotcha, a $100-million surf-oriented California company, believes that this home-grown ability to create styles that speak directly to the market is the key to the California industry’s success. “A company like Nike may make inroads with the consumer who is jumping on the bandwagon, but not with the real surfer,” contends Mark Price, Gotcha’s vice president of marketing.
“Gotcha is a company whose roots are firmly entrenched in surfing,” he says. “We make inherent references to the ocean life-style in everything we do. Surfers respond to that.”
Their well-received “Rhythm Division” line of shorts, tops and accessories, for example, updates the reggae themes that have been popular with surfers for the past several seasons. Instead of Jamaican colors and icons, it is based on weavings of Guatemalan Indians.
Because O’Neill, another $100-million California company, is known primarily for its high-performance wet suits, it is in Nike’s direct line of fire. But O’Neill, whose founder Jack O’Neill invented the wet suit in 1952, believes its experience gives it an unbeatable advantage.
Although sportswear accounts for almost half the company’s revenues, Pat O’Neill, the company’s president, still considers the clothing “a nice adjunct to the wet suit, which drives everything we do.”
Their latest line of wet suits come in a variety of bright, pastel or fluorescent colors, with workmanship that is guaranteed for life.
“Wet suits are not easy to make,” Pat O’Neill says. “You have to do what you do for a long time before you can build up the credibility in the industry and the market that we have.”
But Nike has history, albeit of a more recent nature, on its side too. When Nike entered the golf market three years ago, says Chris Van Dyke, Aqua Gear’s apparel marketing manager, the golf companies made similar claims about experience and credibility. “But now we are No. 2 in that market and are closing in on No. 1 fast,” he says.
Since Aqua Gear’s promotional budget alone is larger than the complete assets of some of the California companies, he expects a repeat performance in the surf market. Unless, of course, the Californians close ranks and make the beach Nike’s Waterloo.
