I took a quick little day trip down to Huntington Beach to watch the US Open of Surfing and to hook up with a life-long friend from Hawaii who's sister, Megan Abubo, is 10th in the world in womens' surfing. By the time we got down there the women had finished surfing for the day, but I was fortunate enough to have a private viewing of four top female surfers catch some waves 'off duty'. We spent the day at River Jetty, the first beach in Newport just beyond Huntington. There's nothing cooler than watching world class surfer girls ripping it up right in front of you on a pretty much deserted beach. These girls were carving out some nice waves while I rode their "back-wash" on my body board (I'm traditionally a fan of long boarding and wouldn't know the first thing to do on a gun!) I've always been fascinated with the surf lifestyle and culture ever since I was 10 and flipped through surfer mags. I was an avid body boarder growing up in Hawaii, but never learned to surf until I was an adult. It's great that surfing and its lifestyle are so mainstream now and have really influenced fashion (remember when Chanel did surfboards on the runway?), whether it's authentic or not is another question. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about surfing coming to the masses, but I must say Huntington Beach was a little overrun on junior surf apparel and reeked of Roxy everywhere. If I see another Roxy logo I'm going to hurl. I know these professional surfers depend on Roxy, Billabong, and Rip Curl endorsements, but I felt overwhelmed by all the cropped tees and low slung 'rippah' shorts. I actually think these surfer girls (not all of them are teenagers!) could use a little injection of real grownup fashion and less trendy 'junior' apparel. I would love to see some of these female surfers sport some Stacia 'après surf' hoodies rather than another logo infused hoodie with graffiti graphics. These surfer girls, I mean, women, are real powerhouses and fashion icons in the making. I would love to see some be endorsed by real fashion brands (couldn't you see Chanel sponsoring Sofia Mulanovich?) Maybe I should send Megan Abubo a Stacia freebie and start the trend?
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