Volcom Workwear is a New Arm of the Stone That Makes Perfect Sense

The best non-professional (male) surfers in Australia are, almost unanimously, tradesmen.

It makes sense. If you love to surf but aren’t quite at the level to get paid full-time (and that level in Australia is sky-high, for those who’ve never visited our shores) then swinging a hammer in a coastal town is the perfect gig. Especially now, when more and more cashed-up Aussies are fleeing the city and seem to have discovered that coastal towns in Australia are, duh, quite nice (charge ’em through the nose boys!). Work for yourself, blow off a job whenever the surf’s good, start early/finish early when it’s not; it’s a premium gig for a surfy.

Anyone that’s owned any Volcom denim over the years knows that they’ve long held the formula for making garments bombproof, so adapting their 30 years of textile experience to workwear wasn’t a push. Durability was the guiding light when the heads at the Stone were putting together the first range, and the idea’s that you buy it and have it for life. The Stone have developed a signature Tough to Tear stretch canvas, which is made up of Nylon 66, the stuff they make airbags from. Anyone who’s copped one of those in the face knows that the bag splitting is the least of your worries.

For any of you wondering who the philosophical gent with the gravelly voice featured in the film is then that’s Ryan Cowell, aka Cowboy the drummer from the Goons of Doom, aka Magic Axe, the man you call whenever you need something beautiful made out of wood. The Goons have long been loosely associated with Volcom due to lifer Ozzie Wrong playing bass, and Cowboy’s the perfect subject to bridge the gap between their surf origins and fresh, hard yakka direction.

There’s been a lot of head scratching in the surf rag trade over the past decade, and more than a few false dawns, but workwear and surf makes perfect sense. Which is ground zero for anything working commercially. It’s easy to slouch in your chair and pick holes in anything and everything (not gonna lie, we got a bit lost in the last 40 seconds), but it’s hard to fault a collective coming up with a clear concept and having a crack. So, a tip of the hat to Volcom Stone – having a go since ’91.

If you throw fins and swing a hammer, get some rugged clobber here.