Surfing in the third millennium: commodifying the visual argot

Australian Journal of Anthropology, The , Dec, 2002 by David Lanagan

In spite of the widespread availability of Surf Wear and the comments of consumers, Surf Wear producers, in particular Rip Curl, do not see themselves as being part of the fashion industry, as evidenced by their refusal to take part in the 1997 (Safe 1997) and the 1999 (O'Meara 1999) Australian Fashion Weeks. Despite this attitude, surfing capital has created an 'anti-fashion' industry through maintaining an antithetical stance to mainstream fashion by constantly reminding consumers and surfers that '[w]e're not really fashion, we're just beach stuff (Singer cited in O'Meara 1999:42). However, consumers recognise this as rhetoric, and that Surf Wear is fashion, as highlighted by one consumer who commented that, 'You don't have to be a surfer to wear Surf Wear. Most surf labels have become just that, a label, and are subsequently worn for fashion. Thus they are almost indistinguishable from other fashion labels' (male, non-surfer, consumer. QLD 1999).

Yet, it is in the interest of surfing capital to remain in a liminal position vis-a-vis fashion so as to have a market for their commodity, yet retain the aura of, or links to, authenticity, in this case--surfing. The Surf Wear industry needs to maintain its links with surfing and enhance its credibility among suffers, while on the other hand it needs to offer commodities that fulfil the fashion needs of its consumers, because as Peter Turner, the owner of a surf shop that has been operating for 25 years on the Gold Coast in Queensland, has been quoted as saying, '[i]f you only sold Surf Wear to surfers, you wouldn't have much of an industry' (Collins 1997:5).

Surfing in the third millennium

Surfing has come full circle, from being what Booth (1994) has described as part of mainstream culture during the 1950s and 1960s, through an interim period when it was marginalised as a minority leisure activity, or on the 'raw' edge of nature (Fiske et al. 1987), to its contemporary position where it is a commodified lifestyle that has been packaged, sold and accepted by wider society.

The current acceptability of surfing and its commodified form is best highlighted by two examples. First, when Mark Occhilupo achieved the pinnacle of his surfing career by winning the 1999 world championship, he was featured (wearing Billabong clothing--his sponsor) in the broadsheet newspapers as well as television magazine programs such as Channel Nine's 'Today'. This is something that had not occurred in the past, even though Australians, both female and male, have won a number of world surfing championships, beginning in 1964. Second, there have recently been numerous marketing campaigns, for a wide range of products, that feature surfing or links to surfing. These range from telecommunications products and services, through milk drinks, to luxury cars, and very few have a link to the activity of surfing, or its lifestyle and, in most cases, even consumption of the product does not complete this link.

The transformation of surfing has occurred largely due to the actions of surfing capital--the compressing of a surfing lifestyle into Surf Wear--resulting in the symbolic ownership of surfing being transferred from the individual surfer to surfing capital through the commodification of the activity and the marketing and sale of the visual argot of surfing. In the early stages of this process it was still possible to recognise a surfer by mode of dress, as Surf Wear was still the province of suffers. However, as Surf Wear proliferated and became separated from the beach, surfers began to recede from ownership of the pleasurable and playful lifestyle, Surf Wear became fashion wear, and no longer the argot of a marginalised leisure group, surfing capital now decides what is Surf Wear and this commodified form is the public face of surfing. The former owner of Mambo, Dare Jennings, has pointed out that, '... they ... [surfing capital] ... produce stuff for the culture that they have created' (Collins 1997:5).