Caity Simmers Is Throwing A Portugal Pre-Event Party You Don’t Want To Miss

Event details below.

Caity Simmers currently holds the highest achievable title in surfing — no ifs, ands, or asterisks.

This week, she landed in Lisbon with a spandex yellow jersey and a vintage cotton blouse in her luggage. Both symbolic of the worlds she straddles in modern surfing.

Her ability to bring elements of freesurfing into competition makes her one of the most captivating surfers to watch right now. Just days ago, while suiting up in a muddy car park, I overheard the guy in the car next to me say, “I only tune in to watch Caity’s heats. I don’t even care about the men.” He was a burly man riding an early 2000s thruster really well, if that matters.

Caity’s appeal might just lie in her relatability. Far from the stereotypical surfer girl, she’s hard to place in the world at large if you’re unaware of her competitive accolades. Her roundhouse cutback belongs on the cover of The Surfer’s Journal, but her wink could just as well be on the cover of i-D, and her candor wouldn’t feel out of place in Interview Magazine, answering a list of Glenn O’Brien questions with, “I don’t know.”

Countless are the internet edit premieres at beach rat hangouts in English-speaking coastal towns. Red plastic cups strewn across sweat-stained pavements still holding the ghostly imprint of the mosh pit from the afterparty.

Now, for the first time ever, Blouse will be screened in front of a largely European audience — away from the coast, in a completely different setting.

The Fairly Normal flagship store, just steps from the Tagus River, sits in an area gentrified beyond recognition but still echoing with the ghosts of sailor fistfights outside titty bars. The business makes its money selling (mostly) clothing that rejects loud, fizzling trends. But at its core, it’s a brand run by lifelong surfers whose roundhouse cutback proficiency falls somewhere between Caity’s and… yours?

Fairly Normal has become somewhat of a cultural centerpoint. Sure, the in-store events are meant to get people talking about the brand and maybe walking out with product-filled, high-gsm paper bags. But organically, it’s become something rare in the city — a space that attracts people well outside surfing: artists, filmmakers, musicians, fashion kids, etc. The curious, the hungry, the insatiably vampirical.

My guess is that Caity Simmers — someone they’ve probably never heard of — is about to steal their hearts. Diminutive but commanding, disarmingly effortless, and larger than life the second she stands on a surfboard.

For those already in the know, give your grubby laptop screen a rest, put your phone down, and absorb the film’s 20 minutes as Caity and Guilherme Martins intended.

For the rest — go become a fan. Then party into the night in the presence of the 10-foot-tall savage who’d rob your trailer park’s robber.

Blouse – Euro Premiere
Thursday, 13th March
19h – 21h
Fairly Normal (flagship store)
Lisbon