A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

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Angourie

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Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

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Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

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Azores

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Bain, Rob

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Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

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Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

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Barbados

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Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

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Baxter, Jackie

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Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

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Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

U.S.-based surf/skate/snowboard apparel company headquartered in Costa Mesa, California; founded in 1991 by Richard Woolcott and Tucker Hall. Volcom started after Woolcott—a talented amatuer competitor who won a gold medal on team USA in the 1988 ISA World Surfing Championships—and Hall decided during a snowboarding trip that their fortunes lay in the action sports business. Woolcott quit his job in marketing at Quiksilver, borrowed $5,000 from his father to start the company, and began making cheap t-shirts and selling them out of Hall’s Huntington Beach home. They sold $2,600 worth of shirts and shorts their first year.

In 1993, Woolcott and Hall shrewdly began sponsoring low-level amateur surf contests in southern California, earning a devoted following among an adolescent surfing crowd. By 1996 Volcom had inked a deal to sell clothes in Europe, expanding to Australia and New Zealand a year later. Volcom exploded domestically after mainstream surfwear retail giant PacSun began stocking their growing lines of merchandise in 1997. Volcom continued to extend their interests in the early 2000s, creating the Totally Crustaceous Tour, an international surf competition series in 2000, and starting a recording label in 2001 with MCA Records.

Throughout Volcom’s expansion, the company worked hard to market itself as a hardcore, almost-but-not-quite-punk surfwear company, with the “Youth Against Establishment” tag featured proudly on all their (mostly black) clothes. Their stable of team riders included popular, and popularly rebellious photo pros who either shunned surf competitions outright, or who simply weren’t built for the pro tour; big names over the years have included Gavin Beschen, Ozzie Wright, Shawn “Barney” Barron, Nate Tyler, Mitch Coleborn, Dusty Payne, Andrew Doheny, Dave Wassell, and Bruce Irons. Popular team videos have included 

In 2005, after years of sustained rises in profits, Woolcott—who continued to live in a beachside trailer in Laguna Beach—took Volcom public, raising $89 million during the initial public offering; original partner Hall had long since bowed out of the company. In 2011, Volcom was sold to PPR—a French luxury clothing company that also controls Gucci and Yves St. Laurent—for $607.5 million. Woolcott collected $61.5 million for his shares in the company

Volcom continues to maintain a strong presence in the surf community, running the Volcom Pipe Pro at the North Shore’s Banzai Pipeline since 2009, as well as the Volcom Fiji Pro, a world tour event on Tavarua Island, since 2012. Woolcott was named the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association Individual Achiever of the Year in 2003. In 2010 Volcom won the TransWorld Business Industry and Retail Award for Brand of the Year. Volcom, along with sunglass-maker subsidiary Electric, earned $360 million for PPR in 2012.

Volcom

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