Even if you are not a surfer yourself you can’t fail to have noticed that surfer fashion has become the standard in modern beach wear. The hight street clothing stores are full of flip flops, sandals, board shorts and hoodies, all developed from beach bum fashions.
Board shorts first hit the Californian west coast in the 1960s and have since skyrocketed in popularity. Earlier beach wear, for both men an women, had not been particularly stylish or practical with little to choose from in speedos and all in one swimming costumes that came to your thighs. Board shorts quickly became popular for many reasons, firstly because they were practical beach wear and secondly because they were really funky and cool looking even to the point where even if you weren’t going to the beach you would wear them around town.
Board shorts were designed by two surfers who knew exactly what they wanted when it came to practical surf wear. They designed board shorts to be practical, to be stylish and to be everything that currently available shorts weren’t. For example, they made them light and fast drying because they hated being wet time after time coming out of the water and feeling wet and soggy. They designed them to be easy to move around in so the shorts didn’t rub you when you were in the water or on your board. Ultimately they came up with the perfect pair of shorts.
Not surprisingly board shorts soon caught on. The cool prints, the stylish yet practical design and the hard-wearing materials used made them popular with everyone from Brad Pitt to surfers one on the beach. And this doesn’t stop at men either, Quicksilver picked up on the massive market of the female surfer and developed their own brand of board shorts designed especially for women, you may have heard of it, Roxy. Another immensely popular brand is Animal Clothing with some outstanding board short prints.
Beachwear and surfwear has fast become a huge industry and everyone from tiny tots to old grannies can be seen wearing colourful board shorts to the beach. Its quite amusing to think that very few of the people who wear board shorts will ever actually stand on a surfboard let alone go surfing.