Inland Bound : The Big Names in Surfwear Finally Take a Hint From the Grunge and Hip-Hop Scenes

After 20 years in the mercurial surfwear business, it takes something special to impress Tom Noble.

Something like the line of surf and casual wear that Irvine’s Stussy Design unveiled at an apparel industry trade show here last weekend. Stussy’s line, which incorporates plaids, stripes and denim, is “not (traditional) surfwear but it’s what the customers want,” said Noble, president of Newport Surf & Sport, a specialty store.

Such is the dilemma facing the surfwear companies that design the clothing and accessories for many of Southern California’s fashion trendsetters. Increasingly, the once-monolithic surfwear industry is begging, borrowing and stealing its inspiration from the beach, the street and anywhere in between.

The $1-billion surfwear industry’s splintering was obvious at the Action Sports Expo trade show at the convention center. While the hall’s south end was dominated by traditional surfwear, surfboards and a bevy of bikini-clad models, the north end exploded with fashions driven more by urban streets than Pacific Ocean beaches.

“You’d have to call this a street show,” said John Bernard, president of Irvine-based Spot, which, like a growing number of surf- and active-wear companies, elected to exhibit its wares closer to the warren of small booths that one security guard dubbed “the ghetto.”

There, small companies hawked baggy pants, decidedly urban baseball caps, skateboards and snowboards. The music was as eclectic as the fashions. Blaring rap competed with sitar players, blues guitarists and a paunchy Elvis look-alike who sleazed his way through The Doors’ “Light My Fire.”

It’s “the funk side of the fence . . . the combat zone,” said Mossimo Giannulli, founder of fast-growing Mossimo Inc. “That’s where the energy is at.”

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Energy levels are still rising in the industry that during the 1980s was characterized largely by conformity rather than controversy.

Then, Ocean Pacific, with sales in excess of $300 million, was the undisputed king of beachwear. Fast-rising Gotcha and Quiksilver each were approaching $100 million in annual sales. But the market changed and those players have struggled as of late:

* On Jan. 22, financially distressed Ocean Pacific announced a planned cash infusion that could move the company out of bankruptcy court.

* Sales at Irvine-based Gotcha tumbled to about $50 million during 1992, down from a peak of about $100 million in the late 1980s. Employment also fell to 150, down from a peak of 200, and the company was forced to deny rumors that it was headed into bankruptcy.

* For Quiksilver, 1992 proved the worst year since the Newport Beach-based company’s 1986 initial public stock offering. Quiksilver responded to the changing market by laying off employees and slashing operating costs.

Apparel industry observers linked the dramatic reversals to a lengthy economic slowdown that cramped consumer spending and prompted a major shakeout among the nation’s retailers.

But just as important, some industry leaders lost touch with consumers. As the 1980s ended, surfwear companies seemed content to recycle neon-splashed shorts and T-shirts bearing the leading surf logos.

But many fashion-conscious youths were already looking inland for their fashions. One upstart company even produced a T-shirt suggesting: “Friends don’t let friends wear neon.”

Surfwear industry turmoil also is linked to a simple numbers game.

The number of surfers will grow slightly during 1993 to about 1.5 million, and surfboard and wet suit sales are expected to rise. But the granddaddy of beach sports has been dwarfed by other outdoor activities, according to a survey by the Dana Point-based Surf Industry Manufacturers Assn.

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Nearly 9 million skateboarders will take to the streets during 1993, a 10% increase over 1992. Dramatic increases also are expected for beach volleyball, in-line skating and snowboarding.

That’s of interest to surfwear manufacturers because people who skate, ride boards and spike volleyballs favor functional sportswear that suits their individual athletic needs.

Surfwear is also coming to grips with the urban influence that begat street, rave and hip-hop designs.

“The industry can’t help but be affected by what’s going on within a 50-mile radius,” said Tom Knapp, president of Club Sportswear, a volleyball wear manufacturer, and president of SIMA. “Street influences do creep in, it’s a real thing and it’s affecting designs.”

“(Industry leaders) didn’t realize (customers) weren’t going to keep coming along like clones,” said Dave Washer, founder of Salinas-based Rag Poets, whose small booth was definitely at home at the funkier end of the convention center. “There’s a whole new generation that’s coming out,” Washer said.

Some surfwear companies were uncertain of how to deal with the new generation. “There was a lot of myopic thinking as to what a surf company could or couldn’t manufacture,” said Mark Price, Gotcha’s vice president of international affairs.

The 1990s have meant “change, and plenty of it” in the surfwear industry, said Paul Holmes, a former Gotcha executive who is now associate publisher of Action Sports, an apparel trade magazine. “If the ‘80s was a decade of conformity, conservatism, materialism and complacency, the ‘90s are shaping up to be just the opposite.”

“You have to understand that the market dramatically changed,” said Shaheen Sadeghi, a former executive with Quiksilver and Gotcha. “The industry has exploded out into all these mini-pieces . . . these (individual) statements.”

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For Giannulli, the message to be gleaned from the industry’s ongoing upheaval is clear: Don’t pigeonhole yourself.

True, Mossimo Sport is a SIMA member. But Giannulli bristles at the suggestion his company designs surfwear. “I never claimed to be surf, hip-hop, grunge or anything else,” Giannulli said. “It’s the media, the press, that keeps trying to tag us. The clothing speaks for itself.”

Sadeghi said youth fashions simply reflect the “melting pot . . . of youth culture that started very much here in Southern California. . . . It’s a very American look, a very youth-American look.”

Some retailers are equally willing to part company with traditional surf designs.

Two years ago, Ray Hamel, co-owner of a trend-setting store smack dab in the middle of San Diego’s Mission Beach district, dumped surfwear and stocked up on tougher-looking, baggy-but-functional clothing favored by skateboarders.

Hamel, who had sold surfwear since 1967, said sales have remained “healthy” because of that decision.

Aware that market leaders of the 1980s were tripped up by dramatic growth, up-and-coming labels have tried to identify, and stick to, market niches, said Knapp.

Some companies--Quiksilver and Billabong, for example--have stuck close to the surf. But other designers “have gained that same type of respect . . . through in-(line) skaters, skateboarders, the ‘rave’ scene or . . . general hip-hop streetwear,” Sadeghi said.

Yet, one company--Hang 10--isn’t afraid to boast about its long-standing surf heritage. The San Diego-based company is marketing “surfwear from back when your mom was a babe.”

Hang 10 might be on track. “Just because we’re out of (surfwear) today doesn’t mean that it won’t be back,” Hamel said. “Talk to me again in five years.”