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Showing posts from February, 2017

Hermès surf? Pour quoi pas!

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Following Chanel's love affair with surfing , it's not surprising to see images of women who surf being used in other luxury campaigns. This time it's Hermès who surfs . I can't find the film to embed (yet), but you can check it out via this link . Famed for their exquisite scarves and handbags, Hermès is luxe to a new level. This little film they've shot to promote their beautiful, hand made, labour intensive scarves (apparently engraving the silk screen takes 750hours!), is very pretty. It does all the usual things relating to mainstream marketing images of women's surfing - young, slim, feminine, white women - but it's pretty. The bit where the scarf shimmers like the surface of the water is mesmerising. I wish there had been more of that because the rest isn't particularly interesting or innovative in terms of images. Like the Chanel film   and film and images before it, this is hard to read or think about or critique this o

Waves lacking in power work for women. Really, though?

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Fred Pawle , is a  journalist with The Australian * and is well known amongst surfers for his contributions about surfing and surfing culture. He is a talented writer, a driven journalist, and his stories are engaging and often touch on difficult issues in surfing. I mean, he's a journalist, so that's kind of the deal. For me, one of his best pieces is about Matt Branson and homophobia in surfing . I abhor/ed Stab magazine - a publication that contributed to ongoing sexualisation of women, (especially athletes, entrenching the issues they face in obtaining sponsorship) and once ran a story that talked about "how to go from date to consensual rape". Truly, they did - but Pawle's profile on Branson was great. He's spent a bunch of time up in Byron Bay recently, writing stories relating to the spate of shark attacks and the different community responses to them along the coast. Some of the responses differ hugely and they're causing a lot of controversy on

Winners are grinners: The 2017 Australian (Men's) Surfing Awards (with bonus woman!)

The winners of the 2017 Australian Surfing Awards were announced on Sunday at a ceremony in Newcastle. Pretty exciting stuff! It's easy to argue that awards like this are kind of empty, but they're not. These kinds of events and awards area moment to think about what surfing is, what is important in surfing and surfing culture, and to talk about the people we see as contributing to that. Awards like this are one of the times surfing culture is visible in the mainstream media, so it's worth paying them attention to see something of who surfers are supposed to be, or who, at the very least, surfers represented as being. So here are the 2017 winners! Australian Surfing Hall of Fame inductee: Peter Crawford Male Surfer of the Year: Matt Wilkinson Female Surfer of the Year: Tyler Wright Rising Star: Ethan Ewing ASB Greater Good Award: Walk for Waves – Jade ‘Red’ Wheatley Peter Troy Lifestyle Award: Jack McCoy Milwaukee Heavy Water Award: Jamie Mitchell Simon Anderson