Toledo has won two world titles in small waves but has publicly struggled in waves breaking over reef and exceeding six feet.
Less than a week after surf fans exploded following a WSL post featuring Filipe Toledo threading small Backdoor which was made in an attempt, you’d presume, to shore up Toledo’s Pipeline bona fides, a surf brand has honoured the two-timer with a t-shirt celebrating his achievements.
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Country Club Surf Brand is a small, made-from-home brand by a gun designer from Volcom who split the company after fourteen years. Joey Frizelle was there all through the good times, the great float and before the joint got bought out by the French luxe group Kering, owners of Gucci, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta and finally, Authentic Group, makers of Juicy Couture’s outstanding velvet tracksuits (a personal fav.)
“It changed a lot for over that time,” says Joe, who was Volcom’s surf trunk designer of note.
His little light bulb moment for a brand centred around pools came when he was watching the Future Classic at Surf Ranch in 2017, the world’s second-ever major wave pool event, a contest where spectators were excluded.
“No one could see what was going on, it was so exclusive, so elitist and all of a sudden everyone had a comment about it, the death of surfing and so on. Everyone had an opinion on it.”
Joe said to a pal, “You know what’s so funny, somebody is going to have a wavepool brand and it’s going to be called Country Club Surf Club or something.”
Bing.
Joe went out and got the Instagram handle, bought the domain, and yelled from his Volcom cubicle, “Can somebody make a logo?”
By the time the afternoon had spilled into evening, he had a logo, a website, had posted photos on Instagram and had mocked up a full range of hats and tees.
The brand started as parody but Joe is anything but anti-tub. He hits the Waco pool when he can and even blew his money on the old Austin tank before it got bought out by KSWaveCo, demolished, and abandoned.
His latest t-shirt print is a play on the old Eddie Would Go slogan, which celebrates the courage of Hawaiian lifeguard Eddie Aikau, but with Eddie replaced by Toledo.
Filipe Toledo has won back-to-back world titles, both in two foot waves at Lower Trestles, but has publicly struggled in waves breaking over reef and exceeding six feet.