"Rivvia Projects has a vitality that mimics its creator and that can be measured at the root of the belly where the phallus rises thick and arching!"

If you hadn’t heard, and I’m not entirely sure you would’ve given its soft-soft launch, Julian Wilson has released the debut clothing range of his brand Rivvia Projects in a deal with the online retailer SurfStitch. 

Rivvia, which is a portmanteaux of the names of  his two kids River and Olivia, is an “an expression of myself, really, and all the things I’m into and passionate about,” Wilson told Monster Children, listing his favourite things as golfing, motorbiking, skating, and mountain bike riding.

Wilson follows Dane Reynolds/Craig Anderson and Luke Egan into the rag-trade, Reynolds’ and Ando with Former and Egan with Depactus, a brand that flew a little too close to the sun before the glue holding its wings melted and it was bought for a song by SurfStitch. 

The Rivvia Projects range, which you can examine in its entirety here, has a vitality that mimics its creator and that can be measured at the root of the belly where the phallus rises thick and arching (many apologies to DH Lawrence.)

Rivvia Projects sits on a price point that is closer to Billabong than Outerknown or the very high-end apparel being pushed by Hayden Cox. 

Very different animals, of course.

Cox, you’ll remember, partnered up with online men’s retailer Mr Porter for his eponymous surfboard brand’s debut clothing collection, which is called Acetone, and which must not be confused with the magazine by Andrew Kidman and Sam Rhodes, which was designed to offset the WSL’s “utter bastardisation” of their beloved sport.

“It appears to me to be a document that could have been written by a Taliban tribunal."

Remember that wild anti-abortion resolution set to go before the San Clemente council three weeks back? 

The world number one surfer Filipe Toledo, a Brazilian immigrant now living in San Clemente and who is a married Catholic with two children, became the unwitting face of the debate after featuring in the story, “Push to ban abortions in San Clemente faces headwinds even in conservative OC.” 

In the main and only image, Toledo, who is widely expected to win this year’s world surfing title despite performing poorly in Tahiti, is pictured crossing the railway tracks at Lowers with a pal. The caption reads, “Surfers cross the railroad tracks near San Clemente’s North Beach. San Clemente Councilman Steve Knoblock has proposed that the city become a ‘sanctuary for life.’”

To recap, it ain’t a secret that the pretty surf town of San Clemente, home to the cream of American surfing, including Kolohe Andino and Griffin Colapinto as well as “cool mom that will let everyone drink at the house as long as no one’s driving” Matt Biolos, leans to the right politically. 

And, ever since Roe v Wade got iced, giving states the right to allow, or more pointedly, disallow, abortions, San Clemente’s pro-lifers have come out swinging. 

Councilman, Stevie Knoblock wanted the Council to formally agree that it “considers life to begin at conception” and to push back against Planned Parenthood health centres or anywhere the unborn are killed. 

“There probably isn’t a family in America that hasn’t been impacted by abortion,” Knoblock told the LA Times.“The [resolution] will get people thinking about what society has been doing for 50 years.”

San Clemente’s mayor Gene Walsh, also red, said he was “appalled” by the resolution, “It appears to me to be a document that could have been written by a Taliban tribunal, and I’ll say that as a conservative, pro-life Republican.”

Anyway, the whole thing stunk to hell and back and council voted three to one to withdraw the proposal from the agenda of an upcoming meeting.

Not that it mattered one way or the other.

The resolution, even if had passed, was symbolic. There ain’t an abortion clinic or hozzy knocking off bebes anywhere in town. 

“The fact is, California is a state where abortion is legal and there’s nothing the San Clemente City Council can do about that regardless of whether we are pro-life or pro-choice,” said Walsh.