Ritual Vision’s First Quarter: Sold-Out Stock, A Forthcoming Film, and Grom Hysteria
How does The Prodigy, Noa Deane, Mikey Wright, Harry Bryant, Dion Agius, Holly Wawn + Milla Coco look together in a surf edit?
Ritual Vision has only been in the market for a few months, but the Australian freesurfer-led eyewear brand is popping off. Since launching last year, the brand has blown through multiple rounds of inventory, struggled to keep up with demand, signed two of Australia’s most outlandish female surfers (Holly Wawn and Milla Coco Brown) and begun shooting its first feature-length film directed by award-winning filmmaker Wade Carroll (Stab edit of the Year – Idiot Box ft Kael Walsh and Stab Film of the Year – Repeater by Quiksilver).
“The biggest issue we’ve had is we fucking launched and then pretty much sold out of everything,” says creative director Dion Agius. “We thought we’d ordered heaps of shit,” but stock ran dry within weeks of Ritual’s initial drop. The same thing happened after restocking over the summer. “Better to be sold out than sitting on too much stock.”
In this economy? Huge.
In HSGP, we learned Dane and Craig hit the ground running with Former‘s launch, racking up over $60K in sales on day one — only to run out of inventory almost immediately. With no stock left to sell, Dane started shipping leftover pieces as far as Africa, triggering a six-month customer service disaster. Ritual, wisely, avoided that playbook.
A strong response from core surf fans, particularly groms, has fueled Ritual’s success. The brand’s frames, made from 100% recycled polycarbonate and priced accessibly, have struck a chord with young surfers, who have been tagging Ritual in a steady flow of user-generated content. “Kids are drawing the Ritual logo on school books, slapping stickers on boards, and sending in clips of themselves surfing in Ritual shades. It makes me feel like a grommet again,” Dion says. “That shit goes a long way when you’re young — it hypes you up, gives you confidence.”
In response to the grom frenzy, Ritual is assembling a dedicated grom team, aiming to nurture the next generation of Aussie rippers. “All these kids in 10 years will be our future Australian pros, so it’s sick to get them involved at a young age,” Dion explains.
Beyond eyewear, Ritual is doubling down on its surf film ambitions. “The whole purpose of the brand is to try and make surf films with an epic team,” Dion says. Ritual’s first film is already in production and slated for release before summer. So far, the crew has filmed in the Caribbean and Morocco, with more trips lined up throughout the year.
Above is a teaser clip prosaically titled, “RITUAL VISION BRAND AWARENESS MARKETING VIDEO FOR SURF INDUSTRY” giving us the first glimpse of Ritual’s star-studded lineup: Dion Agius, Mikey Wright, Harry Bryant, Noa Deane, Holly Wawn, and Milla Coco Brown. The goal? Give the world a taste of how the film will look and feel. The track? A Prodigy rave banger. “There’s a lot of old surf references throughout the brand, so it felt right to use something high-energy from that era.”
Ritual Vision isn’t playing by the traditional surf brand playbook. It’s fast, fun, and pulls from surf culture’s grittiest golden eras to fuel its own future. And if the past few months are anything to go by, that future is looking solid — if they can keep their sunglasses in stock.
