She once told “ Herewith,” “We sold our furniture, our boards and our cars. Seeking a simpler life, Marine Mausse and her young family left France for a more present existence in Bali. The double-lined chest and back panels combined with single-lined sleeves provide layering where you need it and flexibility where you don’t, and thanks to the cropped waist, the Crystal protects you from the sun where it matters most while keeping you cooler than a full-length rashguard would. I spent the summer in the Crystal Top ($125), a long-sleeve crop top with flattering “V” lines on the chest and back. Cami and Jax crafts feminine styles like open-wrap tops and chevron-slit bottoms into fully performing surfwear. The sisters were primed to create a business together after graduating college, Camille with a communications and marketing degree and Jackie with one in apparel design and merchandising. Kauai-raised sisters Camille and Jackie Brady also have their roots in competitive surfing, but these days they spend most of their surfing time logging Malibu Point, just a few miles north of the Santa Monica storefront for their label, Cami and Jax. Photo Credit: Nick Liotta for Cami and Jax The fabric is butter smooth, and a double lining gives you a smoother contour while adding durability. Medium bum coverage and a high-cut leg line add style, and so does the unique Cocoa colorway.
I tested the Ama One Piece ($300), a long-sleeved surf suit with a high neckline and full back for total sun protection. Abysse wetsuits are made from Yamamoto limestone neoprene (non-petroleum based), swimsuits are made completely from extra-soft ECONYL (derived from recycled fishing nets), and the entire Abysse line is made in California. She and her mother, Raphaele, wanted to root their brand in sustainability principles that were in harmony with the ocean environment. “Creating Abysse has been a magnificent journey through celebrating and creating for women that love the ocean as much as I do,” says Reponty. But it was her upbringing in Tahiti that most informed and inspired the surf label that she and her mom founded, Abysse. Hanalei Reponty began surfing for Rip Curl at age 15, enjoying a budding career as a competitive longboarder and model, which positioned her especially well for making a line of surfwear that touts as much function as it does fashion. The difference is that now, some of them are designed and sold by women, on their own terms. And if you still want to wear a thong and a triangle top, there are plenty of options out there for that too. There is a wealth of choice now in what women surfers can wear in the water. But here are six female-founded surfwear brands whose pieces your author surfed in this summer. Today, there are more spotlight-worthy female-owned brands than we can count, and more than we can include in one roundup. In the early 2000s, independent, female-founded surf brands began popping up, their paths paved by pioneering brands like Seea which aimed to make surfwear that could perform at the highest standards of surfing - and of style. The influences that dictated women’s surf apparel design weren’t fully in the hands of women, which meant women’s needs weren’t fully addressed and choices weren’t adequately provided to them. Adjusting a thong between every cutback is…distracting. But surfwear isn’t only an issue of sexuality, it’s a matter of practicality. Even as women’s surf labels like Roxy emerged in the early ’90s, they were spinoffs from male-dominated companies, where female riders felt pressure to look and act a certain way lest they be cut from the team.įor some women, barely-there surfwear reflected how they felt most comfortable in the water, and they resisted any notion that they should repress their sexuality on the beach.
You can find anecdotes like this in Lauren Hill’s new book “ She Surf: The Rise of Female Surfing,” which explores (among many other thoughtfully examined topics) the imperfect history of women’s surf apparel. The bikini simultaneously liberated women from the confines of horribly impractical beach attire while tethering them to sexual objectification, the kind of which led to scenes in the ’80s like women’s surf heats being overshadowed by bikini contests staged on the sand at the same time. Not long after, Jacques Heim debuted the two-piece “Atome,” which barely covered the belly button, but was quickly eclipsed by Réard’s rebuttal: the infamous bikini, composed of four triangle pieces of fabric.
It was born from a rivalry between two men, actually: In the early ’40s, French automotive-engineer-turned-designer Louis Réard designed a women’s bathing suit with a midriff.
The most iconic piece of women’s swimwear was designed by a man.