A few years back on Hawaii’s North Shore I got into a lively argument. It wasn’t in the water but on the land. It involved no localism or racial transgressions, a la Rabbit in ‘76, and there were no punches thrown.

I did, however, want to set things straight.

My interlocutor, a newfound friend from California, was of the belief Quiksilver was an American company - an idea I found preposterous. Then again, he also thought AC/DC was an American band so I should’ve taken note of who I was arguing with and saved my energy for the next session.

But I didn’t sit idle, I argued passionately. The reason? Perhaps boredom, flat days on the North Shore are rife with tedium, but the greater reason is that there was an element of national pride on the line. I could care less for corporate culture but the surfing culture that I had grown up in was largely shaped by the Big Three: Quiksilver, Rip Curl, and Billabong.

It’s easy to discount that idea now as Big Surf is on the nose and it’s awkward to be reminded how we were once so in thrall. Yet, value judgements aside, when I think back to my grommethood - talking early to mid-eighties here - my reverie is infused with colours and motifs, people and events, products and movies, that spilled from the “creative soup” cooked up by those Australian companies.

I’m not gonna call it the golden era of Australian surfing, as after all we’ve had a few, but the cultural touchstones that shaped my grommethood went on to shape global surf culture over the following few decades.

The cultural firehose that floods out of the US was, for once, reversed and Australian culture was exported to the world. Surfing was tinged with the colour and humour of Australia. All the more fun because it was familiar.

I’m drifting towards vexing nationalism so I’ll pull it up here, and anyway, it didn’t last. Gordon Merchant invited the Perrin’s into the Billabong boardroom - a moment I see as surf culture’s Ground Zero - and Quiksilver’s Australian office became a satellite against the juggernaut of Quiksilver International who in CEO Bernard Mariette had their own Matthew Perrin: a non-surfing suit who was handed the reins and ultimately brought the whole thing down.

Cynicism replaced enthusiasm after those blowouts, yet there was still reason enough, on a flat day in a Pupukea bungalow, to argue Australia’s contribution to surf culture via Quiksilver - and also our contribution to music via AccaDacca.

Alan Green passed away on Tuesday. The fella who founded Quiksilver back in Torquay 1970, who took it from cottage player to global force, became another cancer victim.

-Stu

Alan Green 1947-2025

From above. Rather than an obituary we've published an excerpt from 'The Mountain And The Wave', written by Phil Jarratt, that documents the very early days of Quiksilver and captures some of Greeny's spirit, tenacity, and ingenuity. Read More >

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