In 2017, not long after I posted a History of Surfing chapter titled

Davis Jones interviewed me for a short SURFER Magazine feature. This version has been slightly edited.

JONES: In Justin Housman’s 2015 piece on surf fashion, he writes that, really, fashion can’t ever be wrong. He uses a Kanye West quote: “I believe everyone is a fashion insider because it is illegal to be naked.”

WARSHAW: I wear whatever my wife buys me from Marshalls, and Justin Housman wears his boardshorts backwards, like Kris Kross. So there are no fashion experts at the table here. 

If surf fashion found its identity in the ’40s and ‘50s, were there any unforgivable no-nos?

If you’re doing it yourself, and having fun, and being practical in the bargain, and not trying to make other people buy what you’re creating, then on some level it’s pretty hard to go wrong. DIY surf fashion—cut-off shorts worn low on the hips, white T-shirts, things like that—is pretty bombproof. There’s a lot to be said, too, fashion-wise, for what 

 there. No shoes, no jewelry, no underwear, in a lot of cases. Surfers were literally and figuratively stripped down, which looks not only great but has the advantage of speeding your path to the water.

Tailors like Minoru Nii in Hawaii had to have made good money with the mainland surfers pouring in. What made operations like his so successful?

The trunks from M. Nii were rugged as hell and you had to custom-order, which meant your pair didn’t look like the guy’s from the next beach over. Plus, Nii didn’t do mail order. You had to be in Hawaii, and you had to be there long enough to wait around for him to actually deliver. Which could take weeks. And also, the “Makaha Drowner” is the greatest name for a line of trunks ever!

Did mainland brands like Katin and Birdwell later outpace the Hawaiian businesses because of pride in Mainland-made goods? Or was it because you didn’t have to travel across the Pacific anymore to buy a pair of shorts?

It’s really cool when you have to go all the way to Hawaii to get your trunks, but yeah that leaves 99% of the market untapped. Katin and Birdwell trunks were also tough and looked great, and you could pick up a pair on your way to Huntington.

What were female surfers wearing at the time? How did women’s surf fashion change throughout the ’50s?

Jantzen was huge with women in general, and also popular with women surfers. Lynn’s in Waikiki made custom suits for women, and I think Take’s did, as well. Probably Nii, too, since everything was made-to-order. I could be wrong, but as far as I know, Katin and Birdwell never made women’s suits.

In “Lightly Salted,” you mention the not-cool belted bathing suit that Burt Lancaster wore in

How much of an effect did the period’s Hollywood have on what surfers chose to wear, or what they avoided?

Good question, and I don’t really have an answer. A lot of Hollywood people were on the beach at Malibu, mostly at the Colony, close enough to surfers to where they were biting our style. Gary Cooper had a pair of M. Nii trunks. John Wayne and Frank Sinatra did. Supposedly JFK, too.

Where is surf fashion headed? In the startup of Former, Dane Reynolds said, “I’m really curious as to who’s going to buy [our stuff], because I think surfers are too cool to buy surf brand shit, and I don’t know where we’ll land.”

I don’t know either. But if Former lands in the size 34 rack at Marshalls, Dane can count on at least one customer in Seattle.

"SURF FASHION, LIGHTLY SALTED," THE INTERVIEW

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