Quiksilver Inc.—a pioneer of West Coast surf fashion—was chatted up by a group of long-time executives reminiscing on a time when the company was seen as a trailblazer.
“It was like holding onto a rocket ship,” said Steve Jones, the company’s former visual director and store designer for the Roxy and Quiksilver brands, in talking about the business’s growth on a recent panel. “We had Quiksilver. We had Roxy. We had Alex Goes. We had Quiksilver Edition and there was a whole bunch of others. There was just a lot going on.”
Jones, a 20-year veteran of Quiksilver, joined the company at a time when it generated $60 million in sales. He left when annual revenue was about $2.2 billion.
Quiksilver, in-between those revenue milestones, accomplished a number of feats that were firsts within the surf and broader action sports industry, while also solidifying a place for itself in the global fashion industry.
The panel discussion, held March 11 at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, came days after the unveil of the college’s “Hello, LA: Clive Piercy, Inside the Mind of a Designer” exhibition. The space pays tribute to the work of the British designer who started the design firm Ph.D., which counted Quiksilver, Herman Miller and Nike among others as clients. Piercy, who passed away in 2017, was also a professor at ArtCenter College of Design.
Former Global Creative Director of Quiksilver Inc. Randy Hild, Alex Goes Director Maria Barnes and former Alex Goes designer and vice president of women’s design for Quiksilver and Roxy Lissa Zwahlen joined Jones on the panel.
“There was this whole conversation about how do we distinguish ourselves from everyone else,” Jones said of internal conversations about how to make Quiksilver’s portfolio of brands stand out from other surf lines on the market. “One of the things I like to say is Quiksilver was a company of firsts. We were the first [U.S. action sports] company to go public. We were the first company to sponsor a million-dollar athlete. We were the first company to do these free-standing stores. We were just sort of flying by the seat of our pants.”
Quiksilver, aided by Piercy, set out to create a specialty boutique atmosphere when it came to its store strategy. The point was to showcase brands’ full ranges in an elevated setting.
“At the time, we were sitting next to all these other surf brands that were out there: Billabong and Hurley,” Jones said. “You walk into a surf shop and you’re just assaulted by all this [product] – it looks like somebody sort of visually threw up. Clive [Piercy], his touch and his insight and his knowledge and his background [took] this culture that was so insular and … put [his design] touch on it.”
A Pivotal Campaign
Surf gained ground in the 60s with the 1959 release of the movie “Gidget.” The confluence of other factors—Beach Boys culture, discretionary income following World War II and the rise of suburbia—also helped, Hild said. Surfing took hold, creating the groundwork for brands such as Ocean Pacific, Gotcha, Quiksilver and Billabong in the U.S.
“When Clyde came in, we hit this growth spurt and this plateau of growth,” Hild described. “We’ve nailed surf and nailed women in surf, but it was time for the brand to go next level, to go global. I was put in charge of taking this thing global. We’ve got licensees in Europe, we’ve got licensees in China, we’ve got licensees in Japan. They don’t have any [creative] assets. They need more fashion. They need more design aesthetic.”
Hild reached out to Piercy, seeing the designer as a good fit to help take the brand to that next level.
Piercy created the profile of the Roxy girl as a world traveler who drew inspiration from artists.
“That was this nucleus of [ideas] that there’s a global audience out there that understands this amazing culture we were fortunate to be in, so let’s create this concept and campaign around it,” Hild said of the brainstorming that went into Piercy’s early thoughts behind the Roxy campaign. “One of the most important campaigns we ever did in the history of the brand was this campaign called Roxy Studio and Clyde was the architect.”
The ads used bright, punchy colors and images of surfers. They played with the alignment of the letters spelling out “Roxy.” Hild described it as a composition that appeared random, but actually bore some structure. The company tapped artists for their interpretation of the Roxy brand, which served as additional pieces for the campaign.
“It became this tremendous asset for the brand on a global scale. Again, Clyde’s crazy brilliance played directly and went beyond just good design,”Hild said. “It was an understanding of how to build a business and a brand.”
Something New
Roxy, named after Quiksilver founder and former CEO Bob McKnight’s daughter, was aimed at the female surfer when it launched in 1990. It’s reach ended up extending far beyond that with the business growing to be about $500 million in annual sales.
“It was something so brand new on every level,” Zwahlen recalled of the time. “Nobody was doing clothes that looked like this for young women. Nobody was sending women out on surfboards, having surf contests and promoting women in this brand-new way. Nearly every level of what we were doing was just brand new.”
Zwahlen described the period as a “magical” time, where there was no real template for what Quiksilver Inc. was looking to do on the women’s side. The lack of rules allowed the team a certain level of freedom that resulted in significant wins for the business.
In 2000, Quiksilver Inc. tried its hand at targeting the women’s contemporary market, with a grown-up version of Roxy for the 25- to 40-year-old demographic, explained Barnes.
Barnes was playing beach volleyball in Emerald Bay, a private beach community in Laguna Beach, with McKnight. Barnes didn’t know who McKnight was at the time. She recalled seeing a number of women in their 40s on the beach wearing Roxy board shorts.
It struck her a market existed for beach-inspired apparel aimed at an older, female consumer. Barnes chased down McKnight’s assistant to schedule an appointment with the CEO to pitch him her idea.
McKnight budgeted for it in the following year. The decision marked the start of the Alex Goes brand.
The short-lived line touted reversible mesh and moisture-wicking fabrics for day and night.
“This was pre-Lululemon pre-anything that was West Coast sensibility with any sort of stretch or moisture-wicking fabric,” Barnes said.
Quiksilver shuttered Alex Goes about a year after its launch due to cost-cutting measures. However, the diversity of distribution indicated a far-reaching appetite for it at retail.
“Accounts loved it,” Barnes said. “A’maree’s is this really insane boutique in Newport Beach, super high end. I think it’s the most beautiful boutique in America. They’re buying it and then it’s also selling in a surf shop. The brilliance of the brand just went high-low. It was insane.”
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