Sauntering Into Summer
Hey guys, Sports Illustrated may be the Big Kahuna of summer fashion when it comes to its annual swimsuit edition, what with bodacious babes in the latest looks. But what about beachwear tips for fellas? We could use a little help from time to time. After all, swimwear designers claim guys buy a new swimsuit every two to three years.
Moondoggies, it’s time for a bitchin’ beach make-over.
For that, take your cues from some macho beach lizards--professional beach-volleyball players who play on two-man teams and earn a paycheck spiking and jousting in bare feet. The beach is their office, and their dress code takes casual Friday to Xtreme dressing: shirtless, shoeless and suntanned.
On their own, the players have a smorgasbord of style. And a few, like Jeff Nygaard, 28, admit to being virtually fashion clueless--duh, they’re always at the beach. The 28-year-old owns one dress shirt, one pair of khaki trousers and one sport coat, which--after some investigative digging--is really the coat to the only suit he owns.
But give these guys a GQ op while hanging out at Hermosa Beach and instantly they pull together cool looks from this season’s hottest trends: board shorts and short-short trunks in bold colors and retro prints, matching tropical shirts and bottoms and colorful pareos or body wraps for the daring.
Chip McCaw went for the Krizia leopard-print brief trunks with a hooded shirt in a distressed leather fabric and Ocean Pacific shades. Dain Blanton chose silver Red Sand board shorts with red dancing flames that oh-so-perfectly matched silver-framed Oakley sunglasses. And--get this--when handed Polynesian-inspired pareos from Banana Republic, the guys didn’t even hesitate and expertly tied the long cloths around their waists like wraparound skirts.
They eagerly tried other looks: Eric Fonoimoana in a skintight blue floral Speedo; Dax Holdren in a white cotton embroidered shirt and blue-striped drawstring pants from Banana Republic; and Nygaard in Tommy Bahama trunks and retro bamboo-print shirt and Mossimo slides.
Todd Rogers, 27, is usually on the beach shirtless and in drawstring volley shorts that fall slightly above the knee. Give the guy a break, it’s his work uniform. But after trying on some of the current looks--including Body Glove board shorts and a wet suit--he’s convinced that there’s more to beachwear than the same-old, same-old.
Since 13, Rogers, has been on the beach. “The beach and I are a natural fit,” he said and going professional six years ago “was always a pipe dream, but I didn’t start thinking about that until I was in college” at UC Santa Barbara. Rogers told his parents he would give himself three years “to make it to the pros and be successful at it.” And if that didn’t work out, “then I was gonna get a 9 to 5-er.”
Just thinking about a “regular” job and wearing starched shirts and creased trousers creeps him out. “I’m definitely not a coat-and-tie kind of guy. My fashion sense is fairly poor. If I’m not in shorts, I’m in jeans and a T-shirt.”
Holdren, 28, is more style conscious. Correction--his wife is. Jennifer is his personal shopper and buys his clothes mostly from Banana Republic and the Gap. “I don’t like skintight stuff, and I’m not into the huge, baggy jeans look. I like the clean look, no pleats, plain fronts, your basic shirt,” Holdren said.
It’s a look he feels confident wearing. “Style, like anything else in life, is about self-confidence.”
Of course, it helps if you look like something Rodin just sculpted. And you have to work out for a living.
“If you feel like you are in good shape, that alone will give you the confidence to wear a short and to take off your tank top,” said Holdren, who has played professional volleyball for five years. “But you gotta get into the gym and work out or find a sport or something athletic that you like--jogging, tennis, bowling--something that will get your heart rate up. You gotta sweat.”
Still, he knows he’s no ordinary dude.
“Most people can’t believe that this is my job or that you can make enough money doing that. And then they get upset because they’re going to the office while I’m going to the beach in shorts.”
Like his teammates, Nygaard spends about four hours practicing at the beach. He works out daily and jogs three miles three days a week. That leaves little time for clothes shopping, which could explain his sparse closet. Even that one sport coat is half of a tailored suit.
“I played in Poland once with the other guys and there was a suit place there. So, for $130 each, we were perfectly fitted. So now I have a suit just in case I need one, but I can honestly remember wearing it zero times.”
After all, he is a beach kind of guy. And his beach make-over, along with the others, didn’t go unnoticed at Hermosa.
As the hunks in trunks strolled by a sunbathing Teresa Aranas, 24, and her girlfriend, both on vacation from Phoenix, they couldn’t help but notice the players.
Staring at the guys, all she could manage was: “Just add water.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
See Them in Action
For Southern Californians, volleyball is the unofficial sport of summer. From June 8 to 10 at Hermosa Beach, you can catch our swimwear models doing what they do best: playing mano a mano in two-person teams when the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals Tour kicks off its new season.
The tour, which features about 30 teams of both men and women in stops across the United States and Europe, ends in September in Las Vegas. Locally, the tour will hit Huntington Beach from June 15 to 17, East Beach in Santa Barbara from Aug. 17 to 19 and Manhattan Beach from Aug. 24 to 26.
The free games, which also showcase women playing against each other, are played from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bleacher seats are available.
For more information log onto https://www.avptour.com.
*
Styled by MICHAEL QUINTANILLA
