Kehu Butler’s Boardshorts Have Better Job Security Than Most Surfers
When your shorts move units and meaning, Quik keeps calling.
Check out the Tai Kehu collection here.
“So I’ll be calling you again this time next year?” I joke to Kehu Butler at the end of our call — he’s just dropped his third Tai Kehu signature collection with Quiksilver. Being renewed for a third season is everything you need to know about how these boardshorts have been selling — they’re ripping. And yet, not a single shred of that success seems to have inflated Kehu’s ego.
“I thought I’d have this feeling of being like, ‘wow, that’s my collection when I see other people wearing it’. But that’s not the case, I feel like it’s theirs in a way. We all have our own connection to the ocean, and as Polynesians, the ocean has always been a place that unites us, not divides us,” he says. “In a way, the boardshorts are just an extension of that ethos.”
The traditional Tā Moko artists, Maia Gibbs and Henare Brooking, are the same featured artists from previous years. Gibbs is from the same iwi* as Kehu, “and when you’re from the same iwi, you’re instant family. No matter how distant you are,” explained Kehu. “But I’ve got to say, this is my favorite collection yet, just because the symbols have such a special, specific meaning.”
Still, boardshorts haven’t been the only fruits of his labor since we last spoke. He’s also about to become a father, which still feels like an unthinkable, alien concept to me, despite being two years older.
“Are you nervous?” I ask.
“Nah bro, you know us Maoris, we have bloody hundreds of baby cousins, so I’ve been trained real well,” he chuckles. “It’s such a privilege and an honor, honestly. Even though I know there’s going to be long nights with no sleep and stuff. To be able to carry on the knowledge of our ancestors to pass that through to our kids and the next generations is something really special. I can’t wait to share the ocean with my little one. And yeah, the lucky bugger is going to be able to call Hawaii and New Zealand home.”
For now, Kehu and his wife Mainei Kinimaka are staying put in Tauranga, NZ, while their little ‘ika boy’ graduates from embryo to entry-level waterman. After his birth, the three of them plan to finish off the rest of their Polynesian crash course.
“We’ve already been to the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tahiti, which were incredible because I could speak Māori to them, and they could respond in their own language — and we’d still understand each other. The baby’s due in January, so we’ll probably try to get back to Kauai as soon as possible. From there, we just want to travel as a family and surf — take our baby everywhere with us. Go surf, document it, and hopefully make our maiden Polynesia film next year. That’s the big bucket-list dream.”
Check out the Tai Kehu collection here.
*The iwi (tribe) is the largest of the groups that form Māori society. Each iwi is made up of various hapū (clans or descent groups), which might have up to several hundred members. Traditionally, the main purposes of a hapū were to defend land, and to provide support for its members.
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