Arts & Culture: "surf" edit, lol!
It’s the *not caring* that makes concepts like "french girl style" or "no makeup makeup" so worth emulating!
The Venn diagram of people who shop at Moda Operandi and people who surf is like… 7 influencers who live in LA. It’s possible there’s one woman in Montauk who partakes in both.
That didn’t stop Moda Operandi from launching Club Moda Surf. They are soooooo far from the first or last people to co-opt surfing— an inherently not-so-capitalistic pursuit or hobby— and to try to turn it into a fashion or lifestyle status symbol. This has been happening since long before I was born, so I lay no claim to this idea! But look no further than the Surf Lodge as a great example. (As an aside, I love and have always loved this podcast episode that comedian Heather McMahan did on her management team and agent having to pull so many strings for her to… not even get into the main area of the Surf Lodge.)
Club Moda Surf boasts a $3,000 decorative surf board. They actually are, again, far from the first to do this: St. Frank has, frankly (lol), built a brand off of expensive surf boards that can never touch water. (Club Moda Surf has only one water-bound vessel in their collection, I’m not that mad at it.)
There is actually more than one $3,000 surf board. There’s also a $16,000 surf trip (not including airfare, of course), a $5,000 design-your-own-”bespoke”-surfboard SKU… it almost feels like satire of surf culture. And you know that some women are buying it.
Surf culture is intoxicatingly sexy. The things that make it sexy— a way of being in nature, connection with the ocean & nature, the tan and perfectly rumpled hair to prove it, a lack of interest in commitment to anything that might interfere with the ability to paddle out whenever the waves are good— are pretty much completely at odds with the consumer & capitalist movements that employ surfing in order to sell you on an idea or dream of what you could be like. In other words, it’s at odds with the four and five figure surfing “products” above.1
I say this not as a neg— I love some of that shit! I buy some of that shit! I have dabbled just enough on both sides of the aisle, surfing and brand marketing, to appreciate and identify with both. I am a bad, really bad— albeit very polite and big on etiquette— surfer, mostly for lack of regular practice. When I was 24 I spent a few weeks on Oahu with a few professional female longboarders who were nearly twice my age and about 100x my proficiency. They broke my body in until it had bent and contorted to fit the demands of the board & the climate. Surfing in Hawaii was nothing like pushing into the small little peelers in Rockaway Beach that I had been doing as a fair-weather summer surfer in New York— my arms were shot before I could even finish the mile-long paddle out to the right break. Tiny chunks of coral stuck into the bottoms of my feet, I cut them out with a sterilized pocket knife in the mildew-y smelling motel room I called home. I was so exhausted from sunrise, sunset and mid-day sessions that I slept like a log and ate nothing but poké from Foodland and bags of King’s Hawaiian Rolls in bed. For a few weeks that felt like a lifetime, my life was like Blue Crush.
By the end of that chapter, I left Hawaii looking exactly like the surfer girl I’d imagined I would look like on day 2. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and the physical torture sort of put me off of doing it much more. (Regret!) But Hawaii sort of spoils you for the East Coast— it was hard to enjoy frigid Rockaway water after jacuzzi temps in Oahu.
This is all to say, I know enough to know what I don’t know, I’ve got the giant longboard I bought on Long Island that gets to see water a few times a year. (Thank you to my friend Chris for babysitting my board in Rockaway!) I’ve called Rockaway Beach, Santa Cruz (and soon to be Long Beach!) home. I’ve spent more time than any respectable woman should at a “Surf Club.” I’ve rubbed elbows with surfers who can do things I can only watch on TV. (In these situations I find it always best to say that no, I do not surf, so as to prevent embarrassment.)
What makes these surfer chicks cool:
Amazing hair
Cool thrifted crochet clothing
Broken in Vans
A tan glow
No makeup
An everpresent slight dampness
A working bicycle or skateboard
It goes without saying the above applies to surfer dudes too, minus the crochet clothing (sometimes).
None of those things, you’ll notice, really involve spending too much money or thinking too hard about how you look or what you buy. It’s what makes the whole concept so enticing, so worth replicating for retailers like Free People— it’s the not caring that makes concepts like french girl style or no makeup makeup so worth emulating! We all would love to look like stunning models while spending $0… duh.
There are some spaces where the surf marketing is applied brilliantly, to great and not-totally-inauthentic effect:
Baywatch!!! I started re-watching this 2 years ago and it is my comfort show in the summer. If you haven’t watched, it’s not the slow-mo hot girl running montage you might be thinking it is— it’s more like Law & Order of the sea.
Classic OG surf apparel brands: O’Neill, Billabong (my roommate worked here in college and the discount was very important to me for a while), Body Glove (I just made an offer on this shirt on Depop and rocked this bathing suit a lot last summer)
Sunscreens: Zinka (where my mom worked in the 80’s!), Vacation Sunscreen
Apparel: Free People, Seea (their surf leggings saved me in Hawaii), Slowtide (towel poncho has been helpful coming out of the ocean!), my beloved Aviator Nation, bizarrely Cynthia Rowley makes this list too with her surf-ready swimsuits that are great and full coverage
New era “Hawaiian” shirt brands: OAS, Tombolo
Perfect specimens of flip flops: Rainbows, Havaiianas, Asportuguesas
Artsy surf shops: Mollusk, Pilgrim
This is a tiny list, you can tell most if not all of these things are used by, if not made by, actual people who surf. Comment any that you think I missed.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of search terms to plug into eBay or resale sites if you are in search of this summer vibe. This will not transform you into Michelle Rodriguez from Blue Crush, unfortunately, but it adds a certain something:
Trucker hats! Particularly ones that can be worn into the ocean. I found some deadstock blanks and was thinking of making a few First Rodeo ones as a subscriber perk for my most loyal and loving readers. Lmk if you like this.
“Surf sport” windbreakers and pants in cool faded and muted neons
Hibiscus print for that "2002 tankini” vibe
Body Glove, duh
In n Out burger apparel (I’m not joking)
If you’re more of the aesthetic surf type and not actually wanting to get sand under your fingernails, Club Moda Surf, my jabs aside, isn’t all bad. Unfortunately, I want this hat and these pants and I am hating myself for it. I put together a folder with all of the non-vintage “surf inspired” finds I came across during the writing of this letter that didn’t make me want to jump into the middle of the Atlantic to never resurface!
I wish I could be the kind of surf aesthetic you see on Instagram— all-beige interiors, waif-like, white blonde girls, some very Australian.
I am more jocular in my approach— neon, nothing too precious to get covered in ocean water, sweat or beer. Flip flops, dirty Vans, tan lines, bike grease smudged on calf, everything a little too big on me, never able to find a deodorant strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a full-out East Coast summer’s day, sweating bullets on the boardwalk.
That’s okay, because I am just me. 🙂
I hope this frivolous little tangent down silly lane was a welcome respite from whatever has got your goat these days. As always, paid subscribers are getting my deeper, more personal work, and I save a few letters to send to the full “free” list. I’m doing 20% off monthly or yearly First Rodeo subscriptions for a few more days, you can snag it here before it’s gone for good. I really, really, really appreciate the love and support from the folks who have already signed up. 🤍🤍🤍
xx
There is a dark side of surfing and surf culture, obviously: sexism, xenophobia, racism. I’m not delving into this much at all today, since a girl can only take on so much in a single newsletter, but know that I write this all with the basic presumption that we all understand that movements and subcultures can be both incredibly problematic and also still really meaningful in their less problematic expressions.
i love this one! such a fan of surfing culture that i booked a whole 2 week vacay to become that cool, sexy surfer girl only to be slapped with the reality that surfing is fucking HARD! wanted to give up so many times. have you ever read Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life? Good surfing book that ISNT let my people go surfing... cause I m almost certain you know that one. 😛
Yes please to the trucker hat idea!