"Someone got a gun to your head to purchase a higher-end brand? Did someone say this was a high-volume, low-price play?"
Kelly Slater doesn’t lose his cool often, so when it he does it’s kinda interesting, I guess. It seems like all the bullshit about Outerknown finally got the GOAT, and he let some dork on Instagram have it. The comments have since been removed, but they read:
Original Comment:
Get yo head str8 de man @kellyslater I don’t want to hear it’s your fault. You should have known the prices before It went live. Think about your roots. Could your mom have afforded this when you were growing up? Get real man. As a fellow Floridian I am disgusted. Way to represent surfing and surfers and sustainability. How is it sustainable when you have to spend so much money to buy at shirt? As others have said, it’s totally possible to have a sustainable eco friendly product at a lower price point. You better say something to the media soon because your credibility has gone way down by having your name associated with this shit brand.
Kelly’s Response:
You’re gonna use my mom against me? My mom couldn’t afford lunch when I was growing up! I didn’t have two pairs of clean socks as a teenager, literally. So please tell me what exactly is it I owe you again? Someone got a gun to your head to purchase a higher end brand item? Did someone say this was a high volume, low price play? The amount of hatred is next level from dipshits like yourself. I’m a big boy and can stand up for myself. Feel free to unfollow or be blocked. No problem. I honestly don’t mind either way. When the surf product comes out people will learn about it. If people actually want to know the story of how the brand was created and what things cost to be done on certain levels, that will come out. The personal attacks and name calling have been nothing short of unbelievable. People need to grow up.
Now to the important part, how this matters to the surf world. It doesn’t. I can’t come up with anything better today so I’m bringing the low effort TMZ level shit.
Give me a break, hammering out daily stuff can be really hard, sometimes.
I don’t care if Slater markets Speedo’s to Eskimo’s!!!! I’m still going to wander down to my local surf shop, buy a few tee’s, and order all my other stuff online! Go SLat’s, don’t care! But the one picture with the beanie, and the sweatshirt makes you look like a dock worker
That guy got served,oh shite.
I’ve got no problem with the price tag just the fact that they can’t call a spade a spade. Trying to tell the world they’re in the mix with APC and Acne when really it’s like Saturdays and Patagonia fathered a weird boring kid whose name everyone forgets. It’s all rather embarrassing.
Fair enough, it just rubs me the wrong way where he tries to mix in this whole surf culture/sustainability bullshit in. Patagonia gets away with their prices because the product is good, warranty,recycling programs,etc. Slater just has expensive clothing. I don’t think he is above being solely motivated by the all mighty dollar.
that’s a rad typo. doing was the intent, but dong fits better.
Slater fucked up off the bat when he marketed this towards the surf world. I mean this may jive with some of the people who buy stuff from Saturdays ( which is over priced and faux sustainable). I guess any press is good press. I’m just curious how a shop like Katin or Mollusk makes a sustainable made in USA product ( maybe not all but a lot) and charges a fair/ relative price but, OK costs nearly 10x as much? OK belongs in Dover Street Market or something along those lines , right next to $300 Yves Saint Laurent t-shirts. I dont think Slater can really be mad at the reaction to the surf community at large has had to OK.
if something isn’t made in the USA that doesn’t necessarily mean its unsustainable but, if he wanted to make sure the workers were being treated fairly,the product was being produced to his standards wouldn’t it be easier to do that in the US? Unless he is trying to do something helpful for the people of Peru….. I really don’t know
From recent experience in tooling factories, this shit is ridiculously expensive and also very tricky to do in AUS ( I imagine similar in US) as all skills and accessible machinery is often now based off shore. Setting up new machinery – as far as i am aware his brand is one of the first (NOT the first) to be spinning looms of fishing wire. Shit is gonna be risky as fuck and not a walk in the park to source.
Think about it, what’s the fair labor wage in Peru? $180/month? http://www.worldsalaries.or…
Relax everyone. There was a mistake on the OK website. The pricing is in pesos and not dollars.
Between the locals are racist piece (so true!) and Kelly’s clothing line it’s kind of depressing from all the comments to see how many surfers are ignorant, uncultured and just plain goofy.
Ironic that the rich middle age racist locals are the only ones who can afford OK product.
The collective meltdown over this is crazy. Kelly is a treasure and once came too Chicago to support a surfer who was arrested for surfing Lake Michigan ice pit in December.
And no one actually pays full retail price for clothing. It’s marked up heavily so it can be discounted as new styles come in and are rotated.
Guess I’ll just wait for a sale .
Purchase △
All you crybabies need to wake up, nobody gave more to surfing than Slater and as far as i know this is a free world where one can create any kind of a business they ever wish. If OK is outside of your budget then don’t buy it, easy as that. The fact that it makes all the ferals cry tells a lot about the demand.. Lots of wasted energy here. Would it be better if OK comes out with a cheapo line of t’s and beanies targeted to all you who are angry enough to spill your guts out due hatred? Would you then be happy, wearing those mentioned $10 t’s and beanies whipped up by child labor for your pleasure? You are giving away plenty print designs here, for free, since sounds like you’d be happy to walk around wearing a t with a massive photo of sweatshop printed in it.
Oh my god, why do i even bother to comment on this, trolls who don’t have life without internet aren’t worth a comment, really.
…nice to show y’pal Kelly that it ain’t all one-way traffic. And, welcome, Timo! If you don’t know Finnish-born Timo, he’s one of Europe’s best surf photographers.
what has kelly given to surfing? Not professional surfing/WSL, but surfing in general?
You might start with progression first, he’s been pushing that envelope through generations, and he’s been followed. Being a major influence to top pros as well as average joes down the street is hard thing to ignore. Just watch KS in black and white, then think about when it came out and how that felt like at that time. Stuff of aliens. Board design comes also to a mind, without his input there would be way more 6’4″s than 5’9″s in lineups around the world. He’s not afraid to think outside of box, and usually things spread from tip of a pyramid down to street level where we can try to pick them up. I don’t wanna write a list here, if you don’t think he hasn’t given anything to surfing then that’s your opinion. I can live with that. But the day when he’s done with being in limelight, there will be an empty space and to fill that will be hard.
It’s disgusting to read all those comments full of hate and anger, i shouldn’t be even writing anything here, but man i’m just tripping out how people have time and will to dig negative out from everything. Life’s too short for that, and bothering why someone does this or that is great way to waste some energy, especially when all those decisions are outside of your reach. When there’s nothing one can do about them. I wonder what haters did before internet, went home and stared wall all grumpy behind closed curtains?
Timo – progression means nothing to 90% of surfers. They’ll never do an air and would be just as content had Slater’s potato chip boards never come into style. To credit Kelly for going back to what he and his friends basically changed in the first place is a joke. Even with no progression since Curren, we’d all still be having fun.
My guess is that the haters here will be correct. For fun, google “Kelly Slater Outerknown” and see how much (or how little) press it got outside the surf mags/websites/blogs. Other than the Kering-purchased GQ spread, you have to go pages deep to find anyone who even blinked at the news.
He inspired everyone to get on boards that were way too thin.
demanding large sums of fiat currency for sustainability is oxymoronic
I really like that picnic blanket kelly is wearing in the shot on the right. Ethical Recycling! I wonder if he was able to remove the smell of potato salad and fried chicken without using nasty chemicals that could damage the environment…
I sharted because i laughed so hard, well played sir.
you don’t have to hold Kelly’s Australian criminal just degree to understand that this new brand has been pushed down surfers’ throats for quite some time now – in mags, on line, on his twitter. To suggest that Kelly doesn’t care about surfers buying it is disingenuous. Either that, or Kuereg (they brew coffee too?) greatly misunderstood the folks who might actually give a shit about Kelly Slater clothing. But all b-school marketing aside, this is really his chick’s dong, not his.
He didn’t actually say he didn’t care if surfers don’t buy it. Now why don’t you have a nice cup of tea and a lie down.
true, but he certainly acknowledged this line’s not for his masses. I personally could give a shit about it either way, but his response was that of a petulant child, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising.
BTW, you suppose he’s ok if surfers don’t buy his line of …. surf trunks?
When you’re at the top, you’re an easy target, the crappy part of a pretty good gig. As far as Outerknown goes, if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it… and don’t spend your time worrying about it. If you can afford it, dig it and want to support it, get some!
Apart from your whole career, I have been in total admiration of what you are doing, Leave the biggest surfing company in the world because they won’t back your vision!! Go and find credible sustainable material make it ethically – Guess what a $10 T-Shirt does not come without Slavery and Environmental Rape. Good On you Slats!!
Lots of people keep forgetting that it’s not ment to be a surf brand it’s a sustainable clothing label. It would have been easy to pump out the same old shit hoodies and beanies with him just putting his name behind it. Instead they actually produced some really nice tailored stuff that is ment to compete with high end brands without being made in Indian sweat shops with materials pumped full of chemicals.
The dumb fucks who are complaining probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid at spending $800+ on a Mayhem rather than a pop out $300 NSP.
Good point there – it’s all an exercise in relative value.
but the majority would skip both and get something from their local shaper for not much more than the pop-out.
Sure they do… Then they surf perfect waves with no one out and get serenaded by magic dolphins and cheered on from the beach.
how many Meyhams or CI’s are out at your local on any given day? Majority of boards at mine are from local shapers.
You can just admit you’re wrong you know. Reading all your comments on the thread you clearly have twig up your arse over this and it seems your opinion is the only correct opinion even if it is wrong.
Well done on getting your boards from your local shaper though it must make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
no, my opinion is right. And yes, it does make me feel good – it’s better quality, shaped for me by a guy I know, for far less than a computer shaped CI. That’s a nice feeling indeed.
Maybe your mates can make your clothes as well and you can really show Kelly where he went wrong.
Well, if I want baby alpaca beanies, I can just order from Outerknown for $95…or one of 100 other places for a third of the price.
These people act like it’s so hard to get money?