“Curiosity and obsession for exploration!”
Florence Marine X, a twelve-million dollar start-up, is to John John Florence what Former is to Dane Reynolds, a labour of love for men repulsed by the hoops the major surf labels had made ‘em jump through.
Reynolds turned down millions to display a sticker from Quiksilver; John John wasn’t so into Hurley’s pivot into inflatable pool toys and beard oils.
Now, and after much ado, Florence Marine X has opened its online store which sells, boardshorts, t-shirts, lycra or “active” shirts, hats and wetsuits.
The boardshorts are standard enough, most made in various shades of dull, the hats are hats, the tees are tees, but the hooded rash vests are a sight to behold, worn, I imagine, by VALS or Tom Curren (to jump on The Grit’s Kook or Curren gag), yours for eighty shekels.
If you want a wetsuit, y’ain’t gettin’ it cheap.
Wetsuit jackets, $250, a two mm impact suit is $650 and a Japanese-made three mm steamer costs $750. Only smalls left in the three mm wetsuit; large and XLs in the padded suit and most of the jackets are done until June.
But, excellent quality, one must imagine, a trademark of the Japanese cult of artisan craftsmanship. The red pennant logo gives a feel of unfettered glamour and will capture popular imagination, at least for those chasing the athletic-wear-meets-the-street look.
It’s a curious website with a fringe brand feel about it and y’gotta buy a twenty-dollar life membership to get anything although memberships are only available to US customers therefore etc.
As a social experiment , lasting 20 years , from 92 to 2012 , I owned no car , no phone ,no computer and did not have an e-mail address …. and brought to my marriage , a dowry, a towel worth 20€ .
Hey dude like it takes a whole lotta surf to be surf, dude
It was similar to Gary Kong Elkerton … Who was happy to be Kong for Quik , but not Kong for OP or Oxbow but again be Kong for Quik when he got his old job back
Though it may have been that in France that ;
Tu es Kong and Tu es Con ( you are a cunt ) are pronounced exactly the same in the South West of France ?
Sorry Dr Jen to send your creation to the toilet to fiddle with his entity …. I was reading Salman Rushdie “Fury” in the early 2000s and realized , when the main character , Malik Solanka , was obliged to let go of his beloved “ little brain “ how difficult it must be for writers/ creators , like yourself to set their character , begotten and not made , free and beyond their control …. no disrespect was intended .
Dr Jen Tell it like it is ! Word up
https://youtu.be/SDTSUwIZdMk
Was in the Canary Islands for 3 months in 2010 with a mate from the 80s European wind surfing mafia and through another member of the mafia , and another ,a former merchant of Train Spotting Material , we were able to learn that European Surf Shops which stocked Rip Curl could obtain Boards shaped at Pukas for 250 euros Retail and sell them for 450:and still make a profit ……I was gifted 3 wonderful Tokoros from this deal , one of which I left in Fuerteventura , with the 13 year old son of one of the 80s windsurfing mafia , which ignited a flame under the kids arse and got him hooked on surfing . Going back Covid permitting to see the same successful French Surf Shop Entrepreneur ,a friend since 93 to do a deal on boards and wetsuits
JJ just pulled out of main break. this comp keeps getting weirder.
Do his friends/family call him John John? Or is it just like a media thing left over from when he was a grom?
Hooded rash and sun shirts seem about par for the course for good ones available elsewhere but I am a little confused by a $750 piece of rubber. That puts Patagonia to shame and that is saying something.
20 bucks just to get in and purchase a 750 dollar 3 mm wetsuit? I should go back in time and chop off his little blond mullet he used to rock as a kid on Oahu and then travel back and sell it as a NFT for 100K and one of his hooded rashies.
Florence and The Marine collection merch video
… ops! sorry! Florence and The Machine…
Sorry… wrong page!
https://youtu.be/iWOyfLBYtuU
Hello brother Paulo …. Can you please whisper in the ear of Gabriel, and ask him if he decides to have a surfing mental breakdown again this year, could he please have it against my man Connor O’Leary …. Bloody hell he was a freak in Newcastle and Narrabeen and in round 1 and the round of 32 at MRiver and then one heat too late he decides to go walk about …. just kidding St Paul …. hope you are enjoying the Brazilian domination of this year’s tour .
12 mill start up, for a website and some Aliexpress merch? how do they manage that?
Does it count as a CDC approved mask too?
Lemme do some quick calculations…
Tee shirt ($10) + Mask ($1) < UPF Shirt ($80)
I’ll wait until TJMaxx has them on sale next to the Hurley trunks.
$750 for a wetsuit and they’re all sold out? Cunts are fuct!
In 92 I was paying $75 Aus a month to share a house 20om from the beach , during high season , with a garden and access to some of South West France’s finest and least crowded beach breaks ….. The fact that real wages have not gone up much since 92 I can now for 10 x the price , buy a wetsuit from a guy who grew up on the hot sands of the North Shore and not Iceland or Ireland or Norway or Torquay or Santa Cruz … what would JJ Flo know about Cold Water and Wetsuits besides the one almost cold water event at JBay where never booties or gloves or for fuck sake a hood were ever seen on a single competitor ( ok Miguel Pupo might have worn them once but he is from Brazil so that’s okay )
I humbly thank you for making my point in an eloquent way
The Cunts are truly fuct ! My wife just gave me 1000 euros for my birthday and If I play my cards right I can get 2 boards and a wetsuit for that ?
Still more affordable than Outerknown
Is that good or bad Ricardo ? Sadly neither jj or Smelly represent my version of surfing and will never see my money …. funnily I said that about Hot Buttered , after an incident at the 1995 Ocean and Earth Hot Buttered Pro Junior then rode their boards for free in France , for a few years in the early 2000s …. shit happens
Both are ridiculous. Overpriced bullshit, and on top of that I personally don’t think they are very “cool” or interesting brands.
I am old and off the grid and feel fuck all about surf fashion these days… Ok Ricardo , my hypothetical bunker stylist , what is KOOL NOW ? I am 56 , fit , balding , with 2 kids under 8 …. married to a much younger , tall ,, blue eyed , German medical specialist ….what brand should I wear ? fucked if I know …
I can’t say I know what actually is cool, I just know what isn’t. That said, try Hurley! They have face creams now! Ha!
If you steal it , it’s free. Then put the 1k on the mortgage
« La propriété, c’est le vol. » ( property is theft ) said French Socialist Pierre Joseph PROUDHON (1809-1865)… So would I then be stealing twice ?
One should never take advice from the French, unless it’s how to surrender
After spending a few years in Bordeaux studying French Language and History , and 20 years sipping on fine Beach breaks and Wine in the Medoc I must disagree .When they cut off Louis XVI’s head , thus killing off god , and the royal divine right to rule , separated church from state and introduce Montesquieu’s legal ideas dividing governmental power into 3 branches :a legislative , an executive ,and judiciary ….then they set us on the rickety path to creating the intersubjective entity known as Human Rights …Liberty , Egality , Fraternity …. they also make great salad dressing
$75 a month. Luxury!
When I was on the exchange program in Indo, I lived in share accommodation with a bunch of uni students for $7 a month. Nowhere near a beach though.
Great work Lemon …. I once stayed at the Grand Hotel in Luxor Egypt somewhere near the Valley of the Kings for 3 Egyptian Pounds a Night with my sister and her friend who have both gone on to have wonderful careers in Medicine and Biology but had No Fucking Idea at the Time of the Socio Political Scene in the Middle East …Dumb beautiful intelligent non Barbies wanted to know why I said to them a few weeks later in the old city of Jerusalem , on a quiet Friday night , when 10 young Israelis with machine guns came running at us .” SPEAK ENGLISH CLEARLY NOW “ … before walking back along the stages of the cross to a dodgy Palestinian run Hostel for $7 a night
have you seen the quicksilver 1 mil for similar price? I have looked for a 1 mil for years for tropical waters that pock me with sealice!!
I just picked up a hooded Rashie from the brand I work for Hubboards.
Do they look funny? Yes. But fuck off, ive had so many cancerous moles removed off my back that I dont give a shit what I look like as long as I can surf and not get destroyed by the sun
Interestingly, right about the same time the surf soft goods biz hit the shits was when the focus turned to product over marketing. The 15-25 demo, which is who moves the needle, has been proven to want image over design specific product. Supreme sold last year for 2.1 billion and they sold a brick with a logo on it, among other things. But maybe Hulrs/JJF isn’t after that demo? It will be interesting to watch it play out as a case study in a new business model.
When I was in that age bracket , many moons ago , I wanted to be sold the dream of what wearing the shorts could bring me …..Sex , Travel , Warm Water , Sex , Waves , Parties , Sex ….and getting those shorts off….. and not boring as fuck technical details about how the short was made from recycled plastic bottles an unsmokeable Hemp ?
Maybe the generation gap is not as large as we would be lead to believe ?
Not many Gotcha products come to mind but how many of the classic adverts still do. MT was on it. One of the last to get it.
My favorite is Kong , sporting echo beach shorts , on the bonnet of the car screaming
IF YOU CANT ROCK N ROLL
DONT FUCKING COME
which made one feel a part of something , exclusive , and will forever remain my image of Quik and not Kelly wearing golf shirts or Kanoa Claim .
Kong doing a handstand on the railing of the balcony ten floors up at Burleigh made me a fan, along with the performers video.
Mike Salisbury was the genius who came up with the Gotcha ads.
http://thesherwoodgroup.com…
Why didn’t they call it Florence + the Marine?
Or …. Florence Night n Gail ( force winds ) giggles
But possibly the reputation of female nurses was forever tainted by Nurse Ratched ?
Made in USA?
What a shock ….. I was led to believe the only thing made in the USA were pieces of paper with In God We Trust printed on them ….. and a few surfboards ?
If we could pay slave wages we’d make everything in the USA.
MASA ….. Make American Slaves Again ….. ? It definitely worked in the South ?
Ok … I was an electrical apprentice in 1982 ( great hours to go surfing with shit job ok pay )
First day on job I was ripping cables out of machines so they could be sent to China ….
Who sent the machines to China , the Unions ? NO ! The working Man ? NO !
The arseholes following the lead of Gordon Gecko that GREED IS GOOD !
Now this was not Adam Smith or Maynard Keynes version of invest in productivity or look after employment and the economy will look after itself …. this was just fuck you little people , fuck local community , fuck egalitarianism , I can make big dollars NOW by selling our knowledge and machines to China……. now don’t be shocked that China , who ruled the world from the birth of JC to 1850 Ad and who lost out to the west during the Opium Wars ( yes people the UK government sent forces to allow English Merchants to continue to SELL DRUGS IN CHINA ,,,against the Will of the Chinese Empire of the time , and annexed Hong Kong , though unlike the Russians who sold Alaska to the USA , the Chinese who have the capacity to think long term just rented it out for 100 years ) came back to bite us in the bum …..
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Thanks SB …. I had a few too many beers last night , celebrating another year , and chatted with kindred spirits from all over the globe , and got a bit loquacious on the subject .
Congrats….loquacious is good. Happy Bday!
Heres a chatty tale from saturday.
Took your advice and went surfing!
Saturday, for some reason, the surf turned “on”, and I only knew that because I took a bike ride 1/8 mile down the street out of boredom/disgust from cleaning a rat issue on top of some aviaries …..( first clue was I saw jen leaving her spot as I arrived ) It looked ok, kinda crowded and junky but maybe I should surf I thought? Yeah what the hell…
I took my reshaped tanker out, last board I own that isnt damaged ,kinda knee highish wind choppy funk, but fun.
Its a softy type point, great for a fish or longboard but suddenly everyone left at lunchtime, it glassed a bit, and turned on.
This 3 way set comes just “bombing” through, I saw it coming enough time ahead so I got way way outside of the normal takeoff zone(relatively speaking) and I nearly freaked out, riding a tanker, no leash…duh I let two screamers go by and took the 3rd head high swing wide and rode it all the way to the rosewood/miramar, halfway to next point, (fernalds)…which was just weird. EVen a little shorey tube dump at the end….The fans were screamng! sorta..
I did that a few MORE times still just some floater people out. Nobody really showed up. Nothing as good as that first one…. I could barely paddle after a half hour…..so there it is.
It got ugly and cold form the west, the surf flattened back out
….Now its sunday, gross and foggy again. Still gotta clean the rats nest. Maybe I should get a midlength!! haha…
Folks said we havnt had any good waves in 6 months….I dunno, sometimes I just forget I live here, and fart around on BG instead. Maybe I should check more often eh?
Anyways, Cheers! Aloha and Adios!
Well Done SB …. maintain the rage brother … I learnt a lesson when I was 3 and mum asked me if I wanted to go to the pool after shopping and , I was only 3 so irritable and tired ( still hate shopping ) and I said no …… 2 hours later in the bath …. it hit me like a bus …. Why did I say no ….. I love the water more than anything …. I am three and super comfortable by myself swimming ….
I started to cry ….. sobbing for what seemed like an eternity …. probably a few minutes
So when I started surfing I kept this in mind and always went out no matter how shitty or windy , or fat or sloppy out of fear of regret and the pure fucking joy just being in the ocean . I still keep it in mind but occasionally as an old bloke , who has sowed his wild seeds , in and out of the water , I can say no , and had to in January this year at minus 15 degrees and the Pier I was about to surf looked more like it should have been a back drop on an Arctic film set than a surf spot .
No one can hate shopping more than me. People take pity on me and buy me shit!! dressed by costco and handmedowns…that said, when I want something, book, tool whatever, I do my homework and then just buy it.
Thanx for the props
Good for you surfing with stoke.
Its a good feeling that seems to be hard to find in other endevors. Wetsuits really have made life bearable, cept getting in or out seems to be really taking longer than it should..haha..
This all smells very Kelly Slater-y. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to hear Old Baldy has been giving John John business advice, blowing seeds of the insidious Ego Weed up his erstwhile protégée’s Ehukai Lily ass. Naturally, to see the Florence boy fail.
Lucky I heard that it is Big Bob Hurley , the man behind the scenes at Marines
Pass