Surfing Apparel 101

With a market cluttered with quality surfing apparel where do you even begin. A trip down to the local surf shop can be overwhelming not even to mention going online to a large distributor.

The most essential surfing piece of gear unless you live in Antarctica is going to be your board shorts. With so many options on the market it is hard to know where to begin. With basic board shorts, high stretch, warming, fast dry, and basic swimsuits, how would you ever know what to buy.

Personally I love Hurley’s Phantom board shorts. They are the original super stretching board shorts on the market. I own the original black with silver hurleys on your butt and love them. They are a good length coming right above the knee and keep you relative warm, dry really fast, and feel great.

I wear these balls hanging and have had no rash or issues. They stay a little damp because of the material but I haven’t had any problem with this.

I also own Oneill’s stretch boardshorts and some basic quicksilver board shorts but rarely use there. The oneill flex is nice but I prefer the Phantom for comfort and warmth. The Oneill short is more like your typical board short material just more flex.

You will definitely pay a little more for the flex but I feel like it’s worth it. Next on the list of flexing surfing apparel is going to be your wetsuit.

This can also be overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking for. I won’t go into all the details here, ill save that for the surfing wetsuits page. But for starters you are going to need to know what temperature and choose your thickness accordingly.

Just be wary, the thicker the suit the less flex. They have gotten much better since I first got a wetsuit but at 5 and 6mm you’re gonna be fighting it. Other things to consider are sealed seams, neck wrap, sizing, material, and of course manufacturer.

Flip Flops and sunglasses deserve a mention. Basically get something comfortable and stylish. I prefer Bob Marley sandals and Raybans. For the beach I would go with Tiddies and Oakleys but you will have to drop a little more for the luxury.

At your local surf shop you will also find loads of shorts, pants, t shirts, dress shirts. Basically, the works from large surf manufacturers. This stuff can be nice but I prefer getting local surf shirts like Underground Surf Shop in Galveston, Becker in California, or Donald Takayama Surfboards in Hawaii.

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