My daughter is 15, and she loves the beach. She surfs, bodysurfs, plays volleyball, runs soft-sand windsprints. It occurs to me how different she is from the teenage girls of my youth. My sister, for example, a great athlete in her own right, viewed the beach as a sedentary place to lay out for hours and cook herself with such incendiary devices as olive oil and Bain de Soleil so she would look that much more boss in her $25 designer jeans. To my daughter, the idea of just lying on a beach is as alien a concept as $25 jeans. Now, I'm not saying my daughter is better than yours, though I am thinking it. What I'm saying is that I've noticed how much more active girls and young women are at the beach. Turns out surfwear companies noticed, too. Starting with Quiksilver's Roxy in the '90s, they began making bikinis and swimsuits specifically designed for active young women. Mary Miller worked at Roxy in the '90s, then moved over to O'Neill to become juniors' design director. Miller, 31, lives in Laguna Beach and grew up in Seal Beach. She knows the beach. And... More >>>