Globe
You want a roots company? A co that ain’t completely in it for the inflation of shareholder bank accounts? Stab has always held Globe in the highest of esteem for its contribution to the larger culture of surfing (movies, webisodes, contests). And so it wasn’t a surprise when these trunks came in, heavily influenced by Aboriginal artists. Left-field-ish! But such good cake!
Stab: Tell me why you thought it was important to give these trunks an Aboriginal kink?
Oliver: The style of art from the Tiwi islands has a great handmade geo-metric aesthetic which I think works really well on textiles. It was more about the art suiting the project rather than us wanting to just use Aboriginal art. For the last five months we have been working on an upcoming capsule with Tiwi Designs and it’s a nice bonus to be able to showcase what’s to come through Stab.
Timeline me the trunks... We had a concept drawn up, went through a couple of rounds of fittings and adjustments before we threw it in the bin and started again! The second concept came together a lot quicker. We tend to storyboard it, stare at it for a couple of weeks and then leave it to the last minute before beginning and sampling otherwise we (I) change our mind and keep tweaking. We have a great manufacturing partner in China who interpreted the details exceptionally well. We’ve worked with them for over 10 years so our crude sketches don’t take too many rounds of sampling and fittings before we’re happy with the result.
Tell me about some of the details y’might not notice at first glance: the fluoro ties on the drawstring, the subtle rainbow badging, branded eyelets etc. The drawstrings on these shorts have a neat hand-tied thread aglet which we thought was a nice tie-back to the handmade origin of the artwork. It’s good to experiment with techniques we wouldn’t normally do on a mass-produced style. The rubber badge was intended to replicate the colours on the inside waistband and yoke print. We wanted to mix coloured rubber flecks throughout the rubber base of the patch. Instead the supplier used rainbow glitter! Not exactly what we had in mind but seeing we (I) had left the design to the last minute, rainbow glitter it was. Pockets were one thing we wanted to add to the style for functionality reasons and we used an invisible zip construction with metal teardrop pullers. The construction of the short, the fit and styling were suited more for sipping martinis poolside than taking on heavy waves, so for us having somewhere to stash drink money without ruining the aesthetic of the short was important.
