Meet Holly Wawn: One of Women's Surfing's Most Powerful Practitioners - Stab Mag

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Meet Holly Wawn: One of Women’s Surfing’s Most Powerful Practitioners

Not your average welcome to the team clip.

cinema // Dec 11, 2020
Words by stab
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Holly Wawn has been top of the list of surfers we’ve been baffled haven’t got major deals since we first saw her hacking her native Narrabeen to pieces many moons past.

There’s plenty of sportspeople who perform their task with power. And plenty with grace. The two traits combining are rare, and when they do, greatness awaits. Think Dina Asher Smith exploding out of the blocks, a Roger Federer cross-court backhand, Virat Kohli stroking one through the covers (that’s cricket, BTW), Black Jesus dunking, we could go on.

Women’s surfing can generally be divided into those with power, and those with style. The men too, to a degree. Stephanie and Carissa are the exceptions in the female surfing world, and subsequently have 11 World Titles between them. Holly Wawn is another with that rare combination of force and finesse, and, thank ye to the corporate surfing gods, Vans have put a sticker on her deserving beak. 

Charged with whipping up a little introduction vid (little backing thus far has meant that Holly’s flown beautifully under the radar) Stab man of big and left-field ideas, Danny Johnson, came up with the above. The idea was creating something other than the “What’s your name and where’d ya come from” video form, and thus the curious mash-up was born. A few things to note: the opening tube may well be the best barrel we’ve seen surfed (and filmed) on the northern beaches of Sydney. The J-Bay swoops on a Campbell Bros bonzer at 16 seconds are well worth a full examination, and, Holly’s fav shot of herself, the almighty gauge at 38 secs, was snapped by South Coast lensman Max ZappasFollow Holly and await big things.

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