Somewhere else, the 1950s. Probably California. Maybe Hawaii. Definitely Hawaii, actually. We’ve done our research. People are surfing but they’re not wearing anything. They’re naked! They’re not. That’s a joke. They haven’t been naked since Captain Cook first clapped his eyes on Hawaii in 1778 and the Catholic missionaries ruined all the fun.
Back to the ‘50s. The Hawaiians are surfing Makaha beach in O’ahu, 40 miles west of Waikiki, and they’re wearing heavy canvas shorts. Those shorts are called ‘Drowners’.
And this is where the brief history of boardshorts, the reason we are all gathered here, begins.
The original M.Nii workshop.
The original Drowners were designed by one Minoru Nii (M.Nii), a tailor who resided in nearby Waianae. The locals and Californians who’d frequent Makaha – an infamous big wave surf spot – would take their shorts to M.Nii when they were knackered, and he’d fix them up.
Knowing a gap in the market when he saw one, M.Nii began designing twill shorts that could take the beating thrown at them by Makaha. These new shorts soon caught on, and Drowners were born.
The ‘60s now. Still elsewhere. Probably closer to California, where surf culture has exploded and the hungry gaze of corporate America has settled. Definitely California, actually, because that’s where Hang Ten, that old brand with the footprint logo, lives. “The first to brand the California lifestyle,” the Hang Ten website reads today. Is that something to be proud of? Who knows.
Dig a little deeper into the Hang Ten website and you’ll find a bullet-pointed list, on which the first point reads, matter-of-factly, as if they don’t even care: “First boardshort.” The story goes that Hang Ten founder Duke Boyd convinced seamstress Doris Boeck to sew a pair of nylon shorts “that were comfortable and could withstand the pounding surf.” No further explanation is provided.
As per Duke’s vision, the appeal of boardshorts was simple: they were great to surf in, and they looked good. And while all of this was happening in California, Australians were going bananas over surfing too.
Alan Green and John Law started Quicksilver in Torquay, Victoria, and threw their boardshorts into the mix in 1969 – which beat the company’s wave and mountain logo by two years. The then-new company was allegedly the first to use velcro and side scallops on boardshorts, so you have Quiksilver to thank for that.
Gotcha: Here comes the neon.
What else? Gordon Merchant’s Billabong turned up in Australia in ’73, Quiksilver took to the USA in 1976, Gotcha was born in Laguna Beach in ’78, and everybody brought something new to the burgeoning world of boardshorts. Even Stubbies (yeah, those Stubbies) got in on the action – the iconic Aussie brand began churning out el cheapo surf shorts and even sponsored the Stubbies Surf Classic at Burleigh Heads in 1977. The sponsorship continued for the next decade, until the brand returned to hi-vis workwear.
Speaking of hi-vis: here come the ‘80s and here comes the neon. For a while there, boardshorts were fluorescent enough to cause a migraine on first glance; a seizure on second. Quiksilver’s ‘Echo Beach’ range took the stylistic elements of New Wave pop and applied it to, uh, boardshorts, and it all got a bit weird from there.
Mambo brought a breath of fresh air to the fluoro 80s.
Mambo, founded in 1984 in the back of a Sydney record shop, thought that most of what they’d seen up to this point sucked, and began commissioning artists to make boardshorts that didn’t…suck. Reg Mombassa, Jeff Raglus, Paul McNeil – you have those blokes (and more) to thank for the iconic boardshorts you wore in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Good taglines, too, like, “Live fast die young in a nice pair of shorts,” and “More a pair of shorts…than a way of life!”
From here, the length of boardshorts increased, decreased, increased, and decreased again. Neoprene boardshorts made a brief appearance before being banished for good – despite them being extremely comfortable to surf in. The problem? Nobody looks cool in neoprene.
Through the early 2000s to now, boardshorts have seen wave after wave of technical ‘innovations’ and the like. Think microfibre materials. Think gel-infused string ties. Think stretchy stuff. Think built-in WiFi and an on-board personal assistant.
Some Reg Mombassa classics photographed recently. Gee they hold up.
What’s next? It’s hard to say. Boardshorts have now fully transcended surf culture and are worn by every Tom, Dick and Helen whether they surf or not. As a result, there are more boardshort options than ever. Vintage, futuristic, neon, long, short, technical, simple, cheap, expensive – if you can think of it, you can probably find a corresponding boardshort.
The only constant, really, is that we have M.Nii to thank for all of them.