“This Feels Like Something Worth Happening In Surfing”

“I’m about 10 minutes off finishing the vid,” says RAGE chief filmmaker Toby Cregan, two days out from the scheduled drop of RAGE x Former’s new film, and roughly 12 hours before boarding a flight to Indonesia with his wife. A break, finally, for a man who works across several overlapping roles at once.

“I’m not even bringing my video camera,” he says. “I don’t even know if I’m going to bring my computer. I’m having a full tech break.”

Today, one day into Toby’s vacation, the clip drops online, marking the first collab between RAGE and Former, two decade-young brands with mammalian blood in a land still largely run by dinosaurs. The project began, according to Toby, the way most modern institutions begin: a group chat primarily dedicated to talking shit.

A year in, a trip was suggested. The trip became a film, the film a clothing capsule.

“There’s always been heaps of crossover between us,” says Toby. “We’re all mates, and Craig’s helped me out a lot with business shit. We’re both trying to figure it out, running the brands ourselves, so I’ve been able to lean on him a bit as a mentor, even though we started the brands in the same year.”

The Ch11 store in Ventura was also the first shop to stock RAGE grips, so Toby reckons coming together for a clothing collab and a film feels right. Several pieces in the capsule feature the number 17 — a nod to 2017, when both brands launched, almost a decade ago now. Who knows where the time goes, as Nina Simone once wailed before firing a gun at a Swiss record exec who she thought had ripped her off.

Relax, she only grazed his arm.

Anyway, where were we? 

“They started off a little more legit than us,” Tobes admits. “But I guess there’s been a lot of failure on both sides, so maybe two wrongs make a right.”

“Basically, the trip was just us getting pissed in the bush for a week,” he continues. “But I think the most important part of the film is that this is the first footage Kai [McKenzie] has put out since his incident. He’s on Former and Rage, so he kind of tied the whole trip together.”

There’s something about Toby’s filmmaking style that’s hard to describe without sounding overly earnest or corny, but the b-roll between the guys on the trip shows long relationships and an easy familiarity in each other’s company. There’s obviously a whole lotta love there, and it’ll tug on you differently depending on what you’ve lived through. 

Hard to make a good surf film. Harder still to manufacture an emotional response in viewers. This one catches both rabbits with the same snare.

Toby seems to be operating with that in mind.

“I’ve been trying to work out what to say about the film. I don’t want to get overly sentimental. Most of what we do is not that fucking important. But this morning I was going through the photos from the trip and I was like, fuck it, this feels like something that is worthy of happening in surfing. K-Mac is out there doing some crazy shit. We might not be reinventing the wheel, but Kai definitely is.”

As for the final justification behind the collaboration:

“Someone told me you’re not meant to do a collab when you have an audience that fucks with both brands, so we might’ve blown it there. But also, if Dane Reynolds hits you up for a collaboration, you should probably do it.”

Watch the clip above, cop the collection here, peep the photo gallery below.