The World’s Most Stylish Surfer Just Launched A Charity (And A Kickass Towel To Boot)

Watching Mikey February surf is like that first sip of whiskey after a long day of work. Impeccable. 

But of course, a person’s style in the water is just an extension of who they are on land. And Mikey is no exception. 

Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting with Mr. February about his endeavors during this catastrophe of a year. Rather than get bogged down by the ‘rona, Mikey’s been active af, working on multiple projects for multiple brands on top of giving back to those less fortunate.

Below we discuss a few things Mikey’s got in the works, from a film, to a surfboard, and a luxurious new towel. Shall we?

Stab: What’s going on, brother. This is Jack. I’m an intern at Stab magazine.

Mikey: Oh, nice. Nice to meet you.

Great to meet you. I won’t take up too much of your time, I know you’ve got a busy day ahead of you.

Oh, no worries.

How has COVID been going for you? What’s it like over there?

It’s been… I mean, it’s not too bad. I can’t complain. I mean, obviously we had like a super hard lockdown for like 60 days and it was just hard not surfing.

Yeah. I feel that.

But I still can’t complain. Since I’ve been able to get back in the water, I’ve been on a two, three month surf bender. So it’s been good.

Just going all out, huh? 

Yeah.

Love it. Have you been stacking clips for anything in particular or just surfing for fun?

I’ve been shooting for a Vans project that I’m working on. We meant to go to a bunch of different destinations this year, but obviously with COVID we just decided to carry on at home. Winter in Africa is such a great time of the year, Jeffrey’s Bay, all those places. 

What have you been riding for the most part? What’s your daily driver?

I’ve been working on this board model with Channel Islands for about a year now. And it’s a twin fin. It’s been super fun for the point breaks in South Africa, and fun for beach break sessions. So I’m really enjoying that quite a bit.

Yeah. I like twin fins too. I’m definitely not a good enough surfer to handle the speed, but I just like going fast.

It feels very good under your feet.

So we heard you’re releasing a new towel with Slowtide. What was the inspiration for the design?

The whole background on this towel is that my wife and I are starting this charity, nonprofit organization, called Juju Surf. It’s basically highlighting all the different organizations throughout Africa. We have a website, an Instagram, and other stuff. We’re just trying to shed some light on what people are doing all throughout Africa. 

And that ties into this collaboration with Slowtide. The towel says, “Good Juju” on it. 100% of the proceeds go to Waves for Change and Surf Pop, which are two organizations in Cape Town, South Africa. They’ve been doing some amazing work generally, but especially during COVID. Supporting people with food parcels and mental health, and  staying in contact with all the people that they work with. So it’s just kind of saying thanks, and highlighting the great things that they’ve done.

Cool. It sounds like you’re doing a lot of good stuff.  Making me feel like an asshole, I should go volunteer or something. Speaking of which, Slowtide seems to highlight their use of sustainable materials and eco-friendly packaging. Do you place a big emphasis on environmental impact when collaborating with certain companies?

Completely, yeah. I spend every single day pretty much out in the environment, and in the ocean specifically. I feel like it just makes sense to be with people that share the same sort of mindset . You know, just making it a better place. Especially doing this collaboration for a charity, it’s nice that the product itself is also doing good in some way. 

Your style in the water speaks for itself. But what about out of the water? How would you describe your style with apparel? Are you good with boardshorts and a T-shirt, or do you like to jazz it up?

I don’t know. Style-wise, I like a bit of variety, I guess. I keep it simple. I wear a lot of black.  Just a nice, simple pair of Vans with black chinos or something like that. 

Alright. Keep it simple.

Keep it simple.

What do you think people did before towels? Did they just air dry?

Hey, that’s a good question. That sounds like a horrible world to live in.

Yeah. Can you imagine just getting out of the shower and being like, “Fuck.”

Oh my gosh, no. Not a chance. That’d be the worst thing ever. I think everyone would just be walking around with wet clothes because they don’t dry themselves off.

The Slowtide towels seem to be a little bit of a higher quality than my towels. I have a $6 gas station towel and it’s balled up in the trunk of my car. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate them—1 being an off-brand paper towel and 10 being the luxury towel that I stole from the Ritz Carlton?

 I give it a 10. It’s pretty good, I think. They’ve got a good variety of the eco friendly, microfiber, quick drying towel. And  the Turkish ones are pretty rad. Sort of like a little blanket.  

Okay one last question, anything else about JUJU we can expect to see. 

We’re only just getting started and we wanted to just put it out there and then start fine tuning it. We’ve got some exciting projects in the works for it with Vans and all my other sponsors. Lots of collab products to raise money for these different Orgs doing amazing work. Thanks for highlighting it here and if anyone has any ideas, please let us know through the website. My wife is much better than responding to emails than I am. 

Click here to shop Slowtide x Mikey Feb.