Forever young
The sense of smell is said to be the most powerful pathway to memory. But sometimes sight can do the job. A glance at a mere scrap of cloth can open doorways in the mind. We might find ourselves, say, on the beach again during one of those bygone summers of warm sand and bracing surf, sniffing Coppertone while the falling notes of the Ventures play a soundtrack to our days.
For men who came of age in Southern California’s surf culture, and for those many others who tagged along from other states, a curious tribal symbol is likely to evoke memories. Measuring 2 by 2 1/2 inches, it is a cartoonish character drawn on a surfboard. His hair is represented by the board’s skeg. His hands rest jauntily on his hips. He stands on skinny legs with bumps on his toes. He wears a crooked smile and, of course, surf trunks. Woven into the emblem are the words: “Birdwell Beach Britches.”
It’s a brand; and for those who know the brand, Birdie is that old friend who never bothered to grow up.
Graying men who took to the beaches in the 1960s associate the logo patch with the freewheeling escapades of their generation. So do men of the 1970s and the ‘80s. The same is true for those who discovered Birdwells in the ‘90s. And if you prowl the beaches of France, Japan, Tahiti, California and Hawaii today, you’ll see it yet now sewn onto the back of the waistband of these unchanging nylon surf trunks, still having fun.
Just goes to show what happens when a single-minded company stands motionless in this fast-moving world.
In 43 years, Birdwells have never gone out of style. The home-grown made-in-America Birdwell has achieved global reach without ever growing to global size. The company does not disclose its sales or discuss details of its current popularity, but its entire Orange County plant, including inventory, covers no more than 15,000 square feet.
Yet plenty of Waikiki’s famed beach boys wear Birdwells, as do growing legions of outrigger canoe paddlers. Ditto lifeguards from here to Australia, charter sailboat crews in the Pacific and, of course, long-boarders practically everywhere.
Today you probably call your trunks board shorts, and you might find yourself wondering at first sight if Birdie is some oceanic progenitor of SpongeBob. But no matter. Whatever the generation or the location, Birdwells cast the same kind of nostalgic spell as the name of an old girlfriend. And behind Birdwell is a family that makes sure things remain exactly this way.
“We never did follow the crowd. Our pants are different. Our way of doing business is different,” says Vivian Birdwell, whose late mother, Carrie Birdwell Mann, began the company in 1961. Vivian Birdwell oversees operations today along with her brother, Bob, and her daughter, Evelyn McGee, a wry, graying and self-possessed trio who look deceptively removed from anything related to beach and surf.
First Surfer ad
The entrance to their time capsule can be found in an industrial park in Santa Ana. A faded logo with the word “Birdie” adorns a metal door. Inside, Bob Birdwell, wearing a vest and porkpie hat, cuts the trunks with power scissors from layers of various types of nylon according to the backlog of orders. He was a machinist until Mom’s living room business started growing, then the whole family was pressed into work along with anyone who happened over to visit.
“We were only a few years behind the change in surfboards from wood to foam,” Bob recalls. “Back then, most boys wore cutoffs.”
At first, business was strictly by word of mouth. Then they took out an ad in Surfer. Bob Birdwell recalls that it began with the magazine’s fourth issue, back when Surfer published only twice a year. With minor changes, the small ad has appeared in every issue since, evermore quaint against the feverish onslaught of advertising graphics.
Carrie Mann was not the first of Southern California’s beach moms to build a brand name and a following for her surf trunks. Malcolm Gault-Williams’ history “Legendary Surfers” grants that honor to Nancy Katin, whose Kanvas by Katin began commercial production in 1959. Katin still operates in Sunset Beach with a good deal of tradition and small-scale aura. But for family longevity, for lasting popularity and for its profoundly old-fashioned manner of business, Birdwell is unrivaled.
A sample of the family’s approach to the world can be seen on its comically low-tech website, www.birdwellbeachbritches.com. A run-on collage of simple line-graphics, mottos, admonishments, declarations, product descriptions, blurry photographs, tips on sizing (what to do “if you have large thighs”), joshing and a good measure of made-in-America pride, it suggests what the Internet might have looked like if it had been invented back when Detroit still put tail fins on cars.
Some youthful customers, alas, fail to grasp the thread. Birdwell’s website is an easy target for earnest student-geeks who are looking for a quick project to re-design and “modernize.”
Friends, don’t bother.
“That opening page, it’s never going to change,” McGee explains. “My first attempt looked like everyone else’s, and that made me mad. So I did it again.... People laugh when they see it, and they pick up the phone and call even before they know what they want to order.”
Friends, that’s probably not a good idea either.
Shopping with Birdwell is a bit like taking a seat at an old New York deli. You’re dealing here with proprietors who have served many more breakfasts than you’ll ever eat. Choosing a $40 or so Birdwell is a matter of either knowing what you like or giving it some forethought. Take a peek at the company’s 24 1/4-page catalog, another boisterous example of doing business apart from trends. It is stapled together with three kinds of paper and a layout that suggests home publishing a generation before there was such a thing as home publishing, with the inclusion of a first-person narrative history of the company as remembered by Vivian Birdwell.
Inside is the menu that makes good on Birdwell’s motto: “We don’t build 1,000 things. We build one thing 1,000 ways.”
One must choose between four basic models and various sub-model permutations, then between 1960s Surfnyl (drying time five minutes) and more contemporary Tectyl (drying time eight minutes) along with assorted heavier nylon weaves, or maybe canvas if you’re determinedly antediluvian. Then from among 40-plus colors and a few dozen options for stripes and borders.
The birth of the ‘britch’
Boiled down, what is a Birdwell? Or, as they call them at the factory, a “britch”? It is a paneled swimsuit with a waistband that resembles those in boxing trunks, closed by lacing, not elastic. It has a single flap-closing pocket for wax on the right rear and a slightly oversized white button. The stitching is almost always white. Customers object to black.
If there is a secret to them beyond the logo, it is this: Long ago Carrie Mann was asked to try thin nylon instead of heavy cotton canvas for her britches. According to family lore, she replied, “Well, I’m not going to make anything indecent.” For the sake of the wearer’s modesty, she insisted on two layers of nylon -- a feature that has distinguished Birdwells over the years and accounts for their popularity among outrigger canoeists who find that the extra layer cuts down on chafing when they sit and paddle.
Actually, though, the answer is even simpler. It is a rugged trunk with the juju to affirm its wearer’s place in his culture.
“Me? I like them because they are quick-drying and comfortable. That’s mainly why I wear them,” says Billy Pa, a beach boy and surf instructor at the Outrigger Waikiki.
What else can you say about a swimsuit? Except that he sees lots more of them right now, riding the wave of retro. And that he personally has worn out seven pairs in 12 years, which more or less corresponds to the company’s durability standards: 10 years of normal use for standard nylon fabric, two to five years for lifeguards. If you need something hardier, try Birdwell’s Spinnaker cloth, which is meant to last 25 years under normal use.
“I know of one suit that’s been out there for 36 years,” McGee says “And it hasn’t spent much time in the closet either. The owner’s grandson wears it now.”
No time for women
True, not everything remains as it once was at Birdwell.
Vivian Birdwell, who answers phones, supervises the crew in the sewing room (she won’t say how many sewers work at the factory) and safeguards the patterns, expanded the line some years back. Inevitably, her original customers were adding pounds along with the years. So the standard No. 303 pattern with 18-inch legs was augmented with the roomier No. 363, the larger still No. 373 and the balloon-like No. 383 for the man whose manifest success is worn in the vicinity of his behind. The same has occurred with Birdwell’s other primary patterns, the 15-inch No. 301, the 14-inch No. 305 and the lifeguard model No. 307 with leg vents.
What Birdwell does not make is trunks for women. If you happen to be a female with less than an hourglass figure, the company will offer suggestions to convert men’s sizes to women’s. But otherwise, Vivian Birdwell says, “We just don’t have the time. Men are hard enough.”
That kind of directness is part of the charm of dealing with family holdouts in a global economy. With the exception of one middleman distributor in Japan, Birdwell sells only via a network of specialty retailers or direct to the public on the Internet or by way of a two-line phone.
“You call and it’s like talking to your aunt or your sister,” says Eric Phillips of Honolulu’s Island Paddler, an outfitter for outrigger canoeists. “They’re one of the few people left who make it fun; they’re part of the weave.”
So how has it lasted so long, so simple, so quaint? After all, the story of Southern California’s surf apparel is nothing so much as growing big, revving up and selling out even bigger. At her cluttered old desk, Vivian Birdwell replies without missing a beat. Yes, the family has received offers. But she stabs a finger into the chest of the little man on the surfboard woven into the Birdwell patch. “Do you know how much that’s worth?” she asks.
