Firm Gets Its Feet Wet Selling Gear to the New Wave of Women Surfers
Remember Gidget? Gender stereotypes were shattered when that bright-eyed Southern California girl picked up a surfboard and paddled into an arena dominated by men and braggadocio.
Forty years later, the number of female surfers is still growing. And with that interest has come a demand for specialty surf clothing and products.
Established a little more than a year ago, Ventura-based Water Girl aims to meet that need. Last year, the Patagonia subsidiary, which has established a toehold in markets across the country, posted sales of almost $1 million. This year, company executives expect to double that figure.
“The buzz is out there,” said Alison Cutler, Water Girl’s director of sales and marketing. “Water Girl is all about attitude. . . . It’s about feeling good and having fun, and that’s where I think our success has come from.”
The company--which employs five people, four women and one man--has so far concentrated on designing and marketing classic California beachwear for women and girls. That includes everything from skirts to surf swimwear to shirts and board shorts.
The company also markets surfboards designed with the woman in mind.
They are constructed with ultralight epoxy resin and planed thinner to match a woman’s slimmer form.
The company was the brainchild of Patagonia founder and President Yvon Chouinard.
Cutler said that Chouinard, himself a surfer, saw that with greater numbers of women in the water came a market niche that had largely been ignored.
According to the Dana Point-based Surf Industry Manufacturers Assn., the number of surfers in the country has increased by about 650,000 during the past five years to 1.8 million.
Of that, about 15% are women and girls, up from just 5% in the mid-1990s.
That has helped fuel a demand for surf apparel and equipment that annually generates about $2 billion in sales.
Quicksilver, the industry’s largest company and premiere trendsetter, saw sales increase by more than 34% in 1998 to $202 million. Sales during the fourth quarter of 1999 increased more than 64% to $128 million.
Also indicative of the demand is the stunning five-year success of Roxy--another women’s surf apparel company--which last year posted more than $90 million in sales.
“There’s definitely a lot of room for this market to grow,” said Mike Kingsbury, a spokesman for the manufacturers group. “It used to be that you’d walk into a surf shop and most everything there was for men, but that’s not the case any more. . . . Surf shops are devoting a lot more room to products for women.”
And that’s good for a start-up like Water Girl, but Cutler said the company is about more than just profits.
Cutler, a longtime surfer, said she spends her free time getting more women and girls in the water with surfing classes. She said Water Girl is also about giving women, young and old, a deeper sense of self-confidence that they can carry over to other aspects of their lives.
“It is my belief that there is a lot of confidence to be earned from the ocean,” she said. “Paddling through a six-wave set and still being able to hang in there and surf is something someone can take back to work or school. . . . That’s the message we’re trying to get out there with Water Girl.”
So far, most Water Girl products are being sold in surf shops, but Cutler said she hopes to make inroads in the lucrative boutique and specialty-clothes market during the next year.
The company also has plans to broaden its product line to include new clothes and wetsuits tailored to women.
“There is so much room for us,” Cutler said. “This market is huge, and right now I don’t think we can do anything but grow, and all that takes is time.”
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