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First Time Only Happens Once
They say you never forget your first time and 2014 was packed full of Seea first launches and births! Our family grew with the arrival of the first Seeababy, Annabel Ocean Greer into the world, Seea hired it’s first full time employee Summer Nelson and our new Southern Hemisphere sales rep Leana Rack sold our first orders to stores in Australia!
It was our most ambitious year of collabs: we released the first Seea surfboard collaboration with shaper Christine Brailsford, our first Vans x Seea collab of footwear came out with a party to celebrate at Thalia, and our first collab with the Royal Hawaiian Hotel featured our first Hawaiian Seeababe Ashley Johnston.
We had fun trying new things and going to new places, such as producing our first print magazine The Shakamuchacha Issue and being included in the launch of Without Walls stores nationwide! Seeababes Mele Saili and Jenayl Peters touched down on Italian soil for the first time ever, we were invited to show in the RedMilk Room at an international trade show, White Milan for the first time, and our resident shutterbug Luki O’Keefe got her first printed photo feature in Foam Symmetry magazine.
Photos that went Viral
We know you love beautiful surfing photos but we couldn’t believe the outpour of love for personal photos and stories. Margaret Yao Calvani’s pregnant surfing photo and our Korean friends JinSoo & Lucy’s wedding invitation went viral with hundreds of likes and tons of shares.
You were inspired by Nasima Akter, a pioneer of women surfers in Bangladesh to share the story with your friends, and of course, gorgeous feats of wave riding (during Hurricane Marie, the Deus Bali Logfest, and more) made our iPhone alerts blow up with likes and comments.
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| Front page of the Life & Fashion section in OC Register! funtemplates x Royal Hawaiian Hotel collab Doheny rashguard photo by Bryce Johnson and photo of Mele in the Montara rashguard and Pacifica legging by Nick LaVecchia. |
Your Love for Seea was everything
Thank you to all of our fans that shared their love for Seea. Many of our most liked and commented photos were #MySeeaLife photos taken by real customers!
We were incredibly honored to discover that Olympic athlete Julia Mancuso wears the Seea Swami’s playsuit while being a badass surfer, diver and stand-up paddle boarder to crosstraining in Hawaii during the off season. The OC Register wrote a fantastic story on the revival of women’s surf rashguards and featured Seea on the front page of the section! We were stoked to become friends with the super stylish and beautiful human being Leah Dawson, who's now been wearing Seea during her North Shore surf season.
And finally, our fans astounded us with support of each new collection video and project by sharing with their friends and offering congrats. We'll leave you with the video we launched at the same time last year for the 2014 collection, and the video teaser we just released this month, for the 2015 collection. Cheers to another wonderful year!
Mexico Calling - Seea 2014 Collection from funtemplates on Vimeo.
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| Summer Nelson wearing the Hermosa in Salinas, Ecuador. |
While other kids were spending their childhood summer vacations going to Disneyland or the Grand Canyon, Summer Nelson was often packed into a four-wheel-drive motorhome with her parents and seven brothers en route between Southern California and Baja, Mexico, with surfboards and a catamaran trailer in tow.
“I think that this lifestyle not only...]]>
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Summer Nelson wearing the Hermosa in Salinas, Ecuador. |
While other kids were spending their childhood summer vacations going to Disneyland or the Grand Canyon, Summer Nelson was often packed into a four-wheel-drive motorhome with her parents and seven brothers en route between Southern California and Baja, Mexico, with surfboards and a catamaran trailer in tow.
“I think that this lifestyle not only nourished the surfer in me, but it also taught me that it's ok to live out of the box,” Summer reflects on her untraditional upbringing. “In fact there was a clear message to stay as far away from the box as possible.”
As a third generation of Southern California surfers —her grandfather, Phil Nelson was a member of the San Onofre Surf Club since its founding in the 1930's — Summer continues to live by her family’s teachings and carving a career path that’s fueled by passion for the ocean.
Join us in welcoming Summer as the newest addition to the Seea family as Global Accounts Manager! We are thrilled to have Summer as our first official full time employee. Not only is she a proficient surfer herself, Summer has an innate understanding of our brand philosophy and sales approach that stems from her retail background as a buyer at Surfy Surfy. Her time at the International Surfing Association has also prepared her well for her role as our Global Accounts Manager. When we launched Seea in 2011, Summer was one of our original supporters, so it feels great to have her back in this critical role as we pioneer the future together.
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Nelson family camping somewhere around Mexico. |
Summer took us back to her childhood growing up with seven brothers, a stint going “troppo” in Costa Rica for four years and why she ended up back in her home of Southern California.
What’s your family history in Southern California and San Onofre?
My great-grandfather lived in San Francisco during the gold rush. He was an itinerant mining engineer and assayer (this is a very technical term) who worked his way from the dakotas through Colorado and Nevada ending up in San Francisco at the turn of the century. The 1906 earthquake wiped out his business and he moved to Pasadena where he was married and had my grandfather Phil.
My grandfather, Phil Nelson was a member of the San Onofre Surf Club since its founding in the 1930's and he actually met my grandmother there in the water. She was one of the brave few women who paddled out on a wood board that was too heavy for her to lift and had no leash. When I was a kid and my grandfather would tell us those stories. We would ask him why he fell in love with grandma and I remember that he would say, “When she walked down the beach, she made the cutest little footprints in the sand.”
What role did surfing play in your life as you were growing up?
I would honestly say that my family is a bunch of eccentrics who love the ocean in an incurable way to the point of obsession at times. My grandfather was not only a surfer, but he was a test-flight engineer for Lockheed Martin and worked on catamaran design on the side. Before heading home from work in L.A. to Orange County, he would slip out of his business suit in the backseat of his car and stop off for a bodysurfing session at Huntington Beach. I remember my grandfather explaining to me details of hydrodynamics when I was a kid. I paid attention as best as I could because I respected him so much. I feel like things that he said sunk into my brain and stuck.
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Right, Summer's grandfather Phil Nelson sailing and right, with his wood surfboard. |
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Left, Summer's parents in their natural element. Right, the motorhome life. |
What was it like growing up with seven brothers?
I have one brother who is younger than me but the rest are older. It was like growing up in a wolf pack in many ways. I had to be quick and clever any time food was involved, things like that. I was the family grommet. My brothers never treated me like a princess, they treated me like their equal (though there was a solid pecking order in place) and that certainly shaped part of my personality.
You spent some time living in Costa Rica after high school. What initially brought you there?
I first traveled to Costa Rica in the year 2000. After four years of studying Spanish, I wanted to fully immerse myself in the language. With Mexico being a familiar territory, heading a little further south seemed natural. I fell in love with Costa Rica after visiting a couple times and I wound up doing some volunteer work on a farm in the Southern Pacific zone that grows bamboo for sustainable building projects.
I cannot begin to describe the peace that you feel while working in the middle of a bamboo forest on the top of a mountain in Costa Rica. That was where I first heard the word "permaculture" and started reading Bill Mollison's books on permaculture design principles. I found out about another farm nearby that was designed and operating as an organic permaculture farm called "Finca Ipe" with extensive gardens, aquaculture and medicinal plants in production. I did a program there and spent the next year studying, working and surfing, of course.
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Just another day in Costa Rica. |
How did you come to stay there and why?
I remember one day sitting and chatting with the farm owner, Greg in the open-air bamboo house where I lived. I think the words that came out were something like, "If I had the money, I'd buy a piece of this farm from you and live here.” That's exactly what ended up happening. I came back to California for a few years to work, returned to Costa Rica in 2006 and purchased a lot on Finca Ipe. I was 23 years old. I lived there for four more years in a small house on my land, surfed every day and taught surfing in partnership with South Wave Surf Shop in Playa Dominical to make a living.
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Summer teaches surfing in Costa Rica. |
What were some of the pros/cons of living in Costa Rica?
I can’t say enough good stuff about Costa Rica. There are more good waves than you could reasonably know what to do with. It is so lush and rich in biodiversity. They have the largest percentage of protected areas in the world. Costa Rica also has no national army which is noteworthy. They are a decidedly peaceful people.
If I had to point out any negatives, I would say it’s easy to go "troppo" with the lack of boundaries and social norms around you as a basic structure for life. People can definitely go off on a tangent down there and nothing or no one is there to stop them. It's a two edged sword, its wild and free, but you have to be able to manage that. Also, it rains A LOT during roughly four months of the year dumping rain for days on end.
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Summer in the Costa Rica jungle. |
Why did you come back to San Diego and then work at Surfy Surfy?
I came back to San Diego because I missed my family and my home town. I had a lot of ambition and wanted to build my career, and there is only so much you can do from the middle of the jungle in a third world country. Surfy Surfy was opening in May of 2010, right after I had moved home in March. Since I had experience as a shop manager and buyer in Costa Rica, it was a natural fit. Surfy Surfy is a gem of a store that takes pride in selling locally-made products. The boards they carry are shaped by local craftsmen and glassed at Moonlight Glassing are some of the best in California.
Surfy Summer in Seea from funtemplates on Vimeo.
In what ways did you see women’s surfing needs and desires different from male customers while working at Surfy Surfy?
Surfing is a little bit different for everyone, man or woman. It's like a dance floor in that way, you take your personality out there. Everyone experiences surfing in his or her own way.
One of the main differences between men in women as it pertains to their needs in surf gear is that women use the way they dress to express themselves more than men do (generally speaking) whereas men are looking purely for function and simplicity. Women want much more. Something that is simple and functional will be tossed aside by a woman if they don't feel great while they are wearing it. Oftentimes women are choosing fashion over function in the water and finding themselves indecently exposed at inopportune times. Yet they will choose to suffer with this embarrassment before putting on an unflattering, albeit functional piece.
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Summer in the original Hermosa at Oceanside Harbor. |
What are your most-worn Seea suits and why do you like surfing in them?
The Hermosa is my most worn suit. I love that it is feminine and sexy in a very classy way. That suit will hold up to the harshest wipeouts and keeps my back and shoulders from frying in the sun. I have had the most lovely compliments from people while wearing those suits. One of the best was when a guy told me it looked like a cross between a bathing suit and a classy cocktail dress. Thank you!
Where are your favorite home break spots to surf and why?
Swami’s is straight west of my house and I have always really appreciated that wave, it just has great shape. I also like Beacons, Ponto and Oceanside Harbor.
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Summer surfing at one of the insane lefts in Bali. |
Before you came to work for Seea, you were at the International Surfing Association. What did the ISA do, and what did you like about working for that organization?
The ISA is the International Federation for the sport of surfing. Their members are the National Surfing Federations from countries around the world. The ISA does so much great work for the development of the sport of surfing around the world.
I would say that the most fulfilling parts of my job were developing relationships with surfers from every far corner of the earth and hearing their stories. Most recently, I was working with a lot of the West-African Countries and even a group of surfers from Afghanistan to see the positive impact that surfing has on the lives of people from countries that have experienced a lot of political conflict and war. It's radical and very positive.
The ISA also has a scholarship program for surfers under 18-years-old. Each year they give $1,000 scholarship awards to 50 young surfers who prove to be working hard in school and have financial limitations. I managed the processing of applications and it would bring tears to my eyes to see the photos and read the essays of these spirited young kids who just LOVE surfing — kids surfing in the frigid waters of Chile, orphans from South Africa who picked up a board and it made their world make sense, a Muslim girl from Indonesia who was told she shouldn't surf. Girls in a bikini are considered to be immodest and the tan that comes along with it is not desirable in their culture.
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Summer's dad with his boat and buggy in Mexico. |
What do you find are the common values and philosophies when working with fellow surfers?
I think there are certain commonalities between almost all surfers. Ultimately I think we all surf because we enjoy it immensely. I once watched this really great documentary called "Happy" and neuroscientists explained that the brain is stimulated to release dopamine for different reasons, one thing that the brain likes is physical activity, the brain also loves new situations or novelty, and being in nature is a big one as well.
I think surfing stimulates the brain in a multifaceted way. We get this immersion in nature, a meditative state of being completely in the present moment, and our brains are stimulated by this liquid, ever-shifiting environment. I'm convinced that it stimulates our brains to release a good amount of dopamine. The same scientists explain that these dopamine centers of the brain are like a muscle in that, using it makes it stronger and more active. I think all surfers place inherent value on the way surfing positively impacts our lives.
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Summer's quiver as of late 2012. "I like riding boards shaped by my friends and glassed at Moonlight Glassing." Longboards and the fish by Rich Pavel, Mandala quad, Travis Harder shaped tri-plane hull, Dennis Kane fish, Christine Brailsford wood handplane, and a Seea Hermosa suit. |
Welcome to the family Summer!
Inspired to go to Costa Rica? Check out Seea-friendly surf camps in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
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| We love you Summer! |
There are only so many hours in the day, and we can’t thank you our wonderful fans enough for carving out a few minutes out of yours to answer our survey questions and give your personal feedback.
You taught us that you are...
- a dedicated group of surfers that paddle out no matter what
- wanderlust addicts who surf, stand-up paddle and explore the outdoors
- love to stay in touch on social media and go...
There are only so many hours in the day, and we can’t thank you our wonderful fans enough for carving out a few minutes out of yours to answer our survey questions and give your personal feedback.
You taught us that you are...
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a dedicated group of surfers that paddle out no matter what
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wanderlust addicts who surf, stand-up paddle and explore the outdoors
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love to stay in touch on social media and go straight to our website for what's new
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get stoked on inspiring stories about uniquely stylish women surfers
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felt comfortable, happy and flattered while wearing Seea
We are excited to keep making the best bikinis, rashguards and surfsuits for your active lifestyle and pumping out awesome pictures and stories to inspire your next session.
Go to theSeea.com to find out who was declared the winner.
Shop your Top 3 voted most favorite types of Seea suits:
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The first time Leana Rack skimmed across the water on a longboard, her body’s innate nature took over.
“You feel like you have done it all your life but you just got to the water in that moment,” describes Leana — a classically trained ballerina — about her first feelings of surfing. “It’s already in you,...]]>
The first time Leana Rack skimmed across the water on a longboard, her body’s innate nature took over.
“You feel like you have done it all your life but you just got to the water in that moment,” describes Leana — a classically trained ballerina — about her first feelings of surfing. “It’s already in you, that movement, that motion with the wave and your surfboard.”
Though Leana began surfing later in life, her awareness of the earth, bodily grace and self-assured intuition easily transformed her into being captivating natural water dancer. On land, Leana parlays her sense for style into her own fashion agency, Prism that now represents Seea in Australia! We were won over by Leana’s beaming personality and like-minded values to build Seea’s relationships with the best-fitting stores in the Southern Hemisphere.
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| Leana instinctually moves. Photo by Nathan Oldfield. |
Leana’s home around Byron Bay at the most eastern tip of Australia is akin to many parts of coastal California and the people who live there: world class point breaks and alternative wavecraft riders, wild national parks to explore and tight knit surf beach communities dotted along the coast.
From ballet dancer in the city of Melbourne to surf fashion on the coastline, Leana shared with us her journey and why she loves to call Australia home.
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| Leana's favorite sign. |
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| Watego's Lines rolling in. |
What's the surf culture like in Australia?
Beach life and ocean activities are ingrained in our culture here. Surfing has grown exponentially and surf culture has always been a huge part of Australia’s identity. What is especially beautiful is that the number of women surfing has expanded so much, and the female surfer — that traditional “surfer girl” — has gained a much stronger presence in our ocean community with a more sincere appreciation.
What's Byron Bay’s style and your community of friends there?
Byron Bay has a unique and breathtaking setup with Arakwal National Park surrounding Australia’s most easterly lighthouse. On the eastern side known to locals as “the cape,” are two beautiful point breaks and some of the most perfect longboarding waves in the world, the Pass and Watego's Lines. On the western side is an endless stretch of long beach breaks and stunning headlands.
My friends here are my family and we are a connected group of surfers, artisans and passionate humans. They continue to inspire me and enrich my existence. My lady sliding friends and I work on projects together, support each other’s creative journeys, passions, joys, and strive to protect that which is precious to us, especially the ocean. Most recently Lauren Hill, Chrystal Fitzgerald, myself and a group of dedicated and brave local women produced The Vagina Monologues to raise monies for an organization called Assist A Sista that provides homes and safe havens for women and children who have been subjected to domestic violence and other highly traumatic situations. We raised $23K for them in one night! It was incredible!
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| Leana shops at the local farmer's market. |
I grew up in a small town on the mid-north coast of New South Wales (NSW). I spent most of my earlier years until the age of about 25 in the dance world. After completing a specialized BA in Dance/Drama at Deakin University in Melbourne, I was practicing classical ballet, contemporary dance, choreographing dance works and dance modeling.
After living and working overseas and also in Melbourne, Victoria, I moved back up the coast to have a quieter existence and be closer to family and nature. In the North Coast of NSW, I worked in sales for a small boutique label and then furthered my studies at Tafe NSW in Fashion Design and Technology. Having extensive skills in garment construction and fittings, I became the fit model for a local women’s surf brand. I continued to work at the brand for a number of years in sales, marketing and administration.
Now I have just set up a small fashion agency called Prism and will be Seea’s Australian and New Zealand representative. For me, the joy in creating relationships and my love for beautifully constructed garments has led me to where I am now. A deep passion and love for the movement, and beauty in life is always translated into my working environment.
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| Photo by Nathan Oldfield. |
How did you get introduced to surfing?
I did not surf as a kid as my mum was a ballet teacher, hence my career in the dance world! But, I had always loved and lived near the sea even in the city, and I feel like I always knew that one day I would have the chance to connect to the ocean on a much deeper level. It was not until I moved to Byron Bay that I had my first longboard hand-shaped and hand-painted for me by a friend that I began my journey as a surfer. Humbling and precious, I will never forget those first few moments like starting a new relationship. I finally got the chance to dance upon the sea!
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| Leana's gets ready for a surf. Photo by Nathan Oldfield. |
How is surfing part of your life?
The ocean and surfing for have become an innate part of my life. For all the things that the sea has taught me about myself and shown me — I am steeped in gratitude. To be able to be completely connected and present is such an incredible gift. It is a sacred place to be, just like yoga.
[Like yoga,] there’s no outcome, there’s no one looking. There’s nothing in it other than your own relationship and reflection of time that you have with yourself. Just to be in the moment and have no expectations of the moment will always reveal the path and changes in your body or skills at some point. If you keep doing something you can only incrementally improve. I think the joy is doing it without that expectation.
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| Leana at one of her favorite point breaks. Photo by Nathan Oldfield. |
What does surfing give to you?
Surfing has changed my life on so many levels. For me the sea is like a big amazing mirror: she reflects you, so in that way it is a place of healing, absolute joy, devotion and respect. It allows you to be completely connected to nature and the earth’s natural rhythm and breath. Surfing is also really really FUN. I love riding a traditional log and love the feeling of being in full trim, such an amazing feeling!
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| Byron Bay sunrise. |
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| The Hinterland in Byron Bay at dawn. Photo by Nathan Oldfield. |
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| Lennox Head, one of the famous surf breaks around Byron Bay, Australia. |
Why is Byron Bay special and what are your favorite places?
I feel like I live in a part of the world that has a real beauty and sacredness. Incredible nature, surf breaks, yoga, designers and the most incredibly conscious food and health community. So amazing and I also share my life with amazing friends.
The Pass (Palm Valley) at sunset would have to be one of my most special places, a longboard wave that peels forever and a sunset that takes your breath away. My absolute favorite place in the world here is a secret, hahahaha.
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| Leana's outdoor office. Photo by Nathan Oldfield |
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| Welcome to the family Leana! Photo by Nathan Oldfield. |
Keep exploring Oz by reading about our first Australia-based Seeababe Chrystal Dawn Fitzgerald.
Shop Leana's favorite suit, The San-O!
Shops interested in carrying Seea in Australia may contact Leana Rack at [email protected].
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You can now shop Seea at Thalia surf shop, Laguna Beach ~CA]]>