RIP CURL MENS SURF APPAREL S/S 2025 PREVIEW

Retail Buyers Guide: Mens Surf Apparel S/S 2025 Retail Buyer’s Guide
Brand: Rip Curl
Interviewee: Pierre-Alexandre Merlet - Men Division Product Manager

What are the current industry trends in women’s swimwear?
In terms of silhouettes, the main trend is the sliding triangle, which has made a significant comeback in our range across various shapes, prints, and textured fabrics. The one-piece silhouette has also been a key trend for the past two seasons and continues to be a significant style in the swimwear market. Women are not only wearing one-pieces for surfing or swimming at the beach but also as a versatile option, matching them with shorts or skirts for a fashionable look. Therefore, we have expanded our one-piece swimwear offer with various options such as underwire DD cups, deep V-front designs, bandeau styles, unique sizes constructions, and the latest addition, the halter with a low back. A prevalent trend among the younger market is the resurgence of 90’s fashion, including the return of boardshorts. This trend has been spotted on high-fashion runways, drawing inspiration from past archives, particularly focusing on the low waist cut style. We are introducing this boardshort trend in our capsule in collaboration with our athlete Victoria Vergara. Finally, the highlight on textured fabrics remains a significant trend in swimwear. Our collection continues to incorporate fantastic fabrics featuring strong colors and prints that are well balanced across each month of delivery.

What style/shape of swimwear is most popular in your range?
Our best selling shapes are tri tops and cheeky pants.

Which styles sold best in 2024 collection and which do you expect to grow in 2025?
Our 2024 best sellers were our DNA floral printed styles. Yet we have noticed a strong momentum on non floral prints and textured fabrics and we expect these to grow significantly in 2025.

What have been the major inspirations behind the designs in the 2025 range?
Our Spring 2025 collection roots its design identity in several inspirational places from Spain. A small Ibiza town steeped in culture, San Carlos is where we drew the inspiration for our first capsule of Spring 2025. Infused with a bohemian resort-style influence, our hero yardage is a captivating narrative stripe enhanced by intricate texture, detail and color. Our second capsule is inspired from Las Dalias. Known for its eclectic nightlife and music scene, Las Dalias is the perfect hot spot in Ibiza for the free spirited. With this collection, we make eclectic and bold statements through striking color combinations, floral yardages, stripes and nostalgic heritage graphic elements. Our third and last capsule is called Cala Vadella, an inspiring place in Spain. The vibrant colors of the beach umbrellas and turquoise waters of Cala Vadella set the tone for our tropical hero yardage. Two toned geometric patterns, a twist of shine in + colorful crochet in swim and fun new textures offer playful mix & match options to compliment this eye catching tropical print.

What colour palettes and prints will we find in your 2025 range? Any crossovers from other brand product categories?
Our key hero yardages run through almost all our product categories, from swimwear to apparel, rash vests, surfsuits, some wetsuits and accessories, mostly headwear.

What silhouettes are you featuring in your 2025 collection? Any construction techniques you’d like to highlight?
Our vision to be the ultimate surf company drives our attention to swimwear silhouettes which illustrate our expertise in prints, vibrant colors and textured fabrics as well as in technical fabrics and constructions. This season, we are particularly proud to introduce a capsule made in collaboration with Victoria Vergara, which features premium quality Italian fabrics with high technicity. Victoria and the design team collaborated and have been inspired by the core surf era of the Y2K to build both core surf and fashionable trendy silhouettes. Our Spring 2025 collection also features two unique-size swimwear that use specific construction techniques of circular knit fabrics that are engineered to fit any shape of body from XXS to XL.

What materials are you using in your 2025 collection?
Our two main focus are sustainable fabrics and textured fabrics. Rip Curl has been a pioneer in using Econyl for instance, but we continue to commit to sourcing and using more and new sustainable fabrics. In terms of textured fabrics, we have the same approach; we continue to use the fabrics that have proven right such as our flat rib fabric from our Premium Surf perennial program. Our range also features new and trendy fabrics like customized rib, shiny rib, lurex, crochet and jacquard.

What efforts are you making towards sustainability?
We are proud to be a B Corp Certified Corporation (B Corp) for more than one year now. With this, we are part of a global community of businesses who are driving accountability for their impact on people, planet, and community. The B Corp certification is a reflection of our commitment to balancing profit with the organisation’s impact on the ocean and beaches that are central to the surfing way of life, along with the people who make up the wider community. We have bold ESG targets and the B Corp certification is a stamp of independent approval that Rip Curl is meeting stringent standards for positive social and environmental impact.

What are your marketing stories for your 2025 collection?
Our primary campaign will be our brand campaign called Live The Search. It is about the crazy things that riders make, all for a few rides that perhaps last twenty seconds each. Every surfer, and snowboarder too, has a story about the lengths they’ve gone to to Live the Search. The sacrifices they’ve made. The injuries they’ve suffered. The uncomprehending looks they’ve endured. “We’re all on a Search aren’t we?” says 8x World Champ and endless Searcher Steph Gilmore. “We’re all on the Search to find ourselves. I think for surfers we’re all on the Search to find ourselves…in the pit. Haha.” Get out and find it. Live #TheSearch. We are also proud to launch a new capsule in collaboration with Victoria Vergara which will have marketing support across the globe. We have collaborated with her to affirm our leadership in the surf industry in terms of innovation. This capsule features the highest quality you can find on bikinis, and it also reflects the “haute couture” vision that Victoria has at heart.

How will you support retailers to sell this category?
Born at Bells Beach in 1969, Rip Curl’s vision is to be regarded as the Ultimate Surfing Company in all that we do. It is hence important for us to support retailers to sell swimwear as a key vehicle to surf culture and lifestyle. Our seasonal hero swim silhouettes will benefit from a strong marketing support to demonstrate our expertise in this category.

Key Products:

The Search:
This is our main capsule, supported by marketing. This capsule is available year-round with color and product refreshes according to seasonality. In the beginning, The Search was expressed through the actions of two young surfers, Claw and Brian, and their quest for a lifestyle that allowed them to surf and explore new lands from the highest peaks to remote reefs. The Search capsule meets all these needs.

LiveTheSearch_Collection

Raw Energy Jan:
This capsule features a grunge vibe with mauve/blue colors for the first delivery window and very summery, washed-out colors for the second delivery window. The aim is to cater to a strong market trend as well as various consumer profiles.

Raw Energy Jan_Collection

Raw Energy March:
This capsule features a grunge vibe with mauve/blue colors for the first delivery window and very summery, washed-out colors for the second delivery window. The aim is to cater to a strong market trend as well as various consumer profiles.

Raw Energy March_Collection