Is it ever too late to jump on a trend? Paul Naude shouts an emphatic "No!" before time travelling to 2010!
Paul Naude, ex-Billabong chief, and the other creators x innovators of surf start-up Vissla are genius. Like, very salt-of-the-earth smart. It is difficult to perfectly capture the zeitgeist of any era. Wes Anderson spends years and years painstakingly re-creating the nuances of romanticized epochs from early 1930s Eastern Europe (Grand Budapest Hotel) to mid-1960s New England (Moonrise Kingdom).
Paul Naude decided that 2010 was the best year ever and painstakingly recreated a surf brand based on a bearded DIY aesthetic four years after its high-water mark.
Note the v v subtle components shown in their brand launch video.
1) Coffee
2) Hand tattoo
3) Hand-shaped board
4) Hand-drawn art
5) Grainy Super 8 black + white footage
6) Slob air (in black + white, of course)
7) Briefcase filled with…
8) …film!
9) Footage of a Super 8 camera being held
10) Wide swallow twin-fin
It transports you, exactly, to a far away time (2010) and a far away place (Newport Beach). It is genius because, as trends go, it is never to soon to imitate. And by imitate I mean innovate.
Launched on the day of my 40th birthday no less. As I accept the realities of youth long since gone, less time in the water, slower transitions to my feet and the serious concern of how to deal with greying hair and the coarse texture that goes hand in hand with these grey rogue strands. The good thing is I can accept it from the privacy of my dull existence, it still aches, a dull ache but an ache no less, I don’t need to hang on, grasping at each new trend that passes with the seasons change, but it’s very real, as am I. Industrialised surfing on the other hand is not, our heroes are not, I am ashamed to say I was once tricked by these people.