One of Australia’s most iconic surf brands started with an eight-word question and has grown into a global empire.
The World’s Best Players Compete at Rip Curl Pro Championship at Bells Beach
After Doug “Claw” Warbrick met each other on the street, he offered Bryan Singer a simple solution that would lead to the birth of the global surfing empire, Rip Curl.
“Do you want to start making skateboards together?” Chloe asked Brian.
He immediately said, “Yes.”
With a small tin garage along the Great Ocean Road, the duo began shaping surfboards and building a multi-million dollar company right out of their backyard.
Just a few months after starting operations, Rip Curl moved its operations to the Old Torquay Bakery at 5 Boston Rd. Photo: Supplied
By April, Claw was making four boards a week for Torquay’s top surfers, with Brian responsible for sanding them and making the fins.
After about seven months, business was booming, clients were expanding, and the couple had quickly outgrown their humble beginnings. It was time to find a larger workspace.
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For $10 a week, Claw and Brian moved to the Old Torquay Bakery at 5 Boston Rd, where they installed a forging room, glass and sanding rooms.
The enthusiastic surfers were now producing 12 surfboards a week, and the old bakery quickly became a hub of activity and the new headquarters for Rip Curl.
By December, their two-man workforce had become a three-man team, with fellow surfer Alan Green joining the companies with a World War II sewing machine in hand.
Rip Curl has become more than just a retailer, it now sponsors some of the biggest surfing competitions every year. Photo: NewsWire/Jeremy Piper
Using Green’s expertise and a “Singer Up the Arm Zig Zag 1910” sewing machine that had previously been used to sew flight boots for pilots, the trio began developing and selling “Long-John” diving suits from the basement of the bakery.
As production began to increase, the group moved all of its wetsuit manufacturing operations to Claw’s apartment at 66 Zeally Bay Rd, with the house next door later becoming a wetsuit factory.
The old bakery remained the heart of the thriving brand, with Melburnians flocking to the area in search of the perfect surf spot.
“It was home to all the surf dropouts who came from Melbourne and then moved to Krishna looking for the next thing,” Brian said.
“But when that was over and their final decline occurred, they came to work at the Rip Curl wet suit factory.”
Surfboards account for just 16 percent of Rip Curls’ annual revenue. Photo: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard
In 1970, Green left Rip Curl and formed Quicksilver with Claw and Brian as equal partners.
But the partnership soon ended and Chloe and Brian turned their focus back to Rip Curl, which continued to expand its operations across Australia.
Fifty years after starting their business in a coastal backyard, Chloe and Brian have sold their iconic surf brand to camping and hiking gear specialist Kathmandu for $350 million.
In 2019, the company’s global annual sales totaled $455 million, with surfwear accounting for more than 40 percent of sales, women’s apparel 22 percent of sales, and wetsuits 16 percent.
There are approximately 120 Rip Curl stores across Australia and New Zealand.
The brand has also become one of the largest sponsors of professional surfing competitions in the world, including the annual Rip Curl Pro competition held at Bells Beach every year and just a few kilometres from where it all began in 1969.
