Why Start A Surf Brand?

Being I have surfed most of my life, I have dressed myself to reflect the sport I have loved since elementary school days. I didn’t grow up very far from the beach, but there was still only a handful of us that surfed and took passion in it.  We were kind of the outcasts, since we were the minority in the world of sports.

The kids playing team sports thought we were kooks, but that never mattered to us. We at least thought we were really cool wearing neon colors, sunglasses, and flip flops wherever we went. The brands of the 80’s and 90’s were loud, and as time went on and surfing started to be more accepted and popular, we ended up being a little bit cool. I look back now and think we were super rad, but I love the surf culture around that era.

I always shopped at surf shops and bought all the major brands. I was enamored by the trends and it helped bring an identity to me as a surfer. It was cool to be out and cross paths with someone else dressed like you and you both knew you were in the same cool unspoken club. Occasionally, an non-surfer would stroll in wearing a name brand surf shirt and words like “poser” or “barney” would be shared with the unsuspecting victim. We didn’t allow outsiders to come in uninvited, you had to be the real deal.

As time has passed and surfing has become mainstream, the major surf brands started showing up at big name stores in the mall and tourist shops. Now anybody and everybody is wearing surf gear, whether they surf or not and that has taken the cool out of the core brands and crossed a line into the world I know & love.

As my wife and myself grew tired of being mainstream, we stopped buying the major brands and always looked to seek out the smaller, lesser-known surf brands. There are plenty of them out there and many of them are super core to our sport. However, we still didn’t love a lot of the designs. Many of the same trends and designs seemed to transmit through many brands in hopes of being popular.

So, we decided the best way for us to find clothes we liked, was to make them. Feel and comfort is also a huge factor for us, so that was our main goal. We wanted to go back to simple designs that looked great, felt great, and keep the company small and in the interest of true surfers. Hence,  AquaGlyph was born!!!

The name Aqua derives from Latin for water. Glyph is a carving. Put the two together and you have water carving. Maybe not what we actually call surfing, but we thought it was an inventive way to recognize the sport. Many brands seem to share the same words or wording.  We wanted to be different, and as of now, we are very unique to the name we have branded.

Our hope is to occasionally pass by a fellow AquaGlyph patron, and we can both look at each other and know, we are from the same tribe. Real surfers wearing a real surf brand. We didn’t embark on this journey for money, it is truly for the passion and going back to the roots where surf brands began. We plan to continue our path to provide great apparel to represent our great sport.