In the water, surfers preferred three kinds of suits: Doggers, sporting four different-colored panels with white cuffs and waistband; canvas suits made of sailcloth by Katin of Sunset Beach; and baggies, made of clear plastic sandwich bags to show off a surfer's “big lunch.” And, as the surfer shown here demonstrates, most surfers wore the ubiquitous Fender guitar. Few had followed Dale's lead to the organ and instead adopted the distinctively Californian guitars and amps designed by Fullerton's Leo Fender.
The world's embrace of all things atomic led French designers to name an explosively revealing new two-piece swimsuit after the Bikini Atoll, where U.S. atom-bomb tests were conducted. Both the swimsuit and the really large shellfish that resulted from the tests were embraced by the California beach crowd.
As the '60s progressed, the innocence of the surfing scene gave way to the British Invasion, campus unrest, cynicism and other stuff. Surf rockers tried to change with the times by moving into hot-rod music. Beachwear expanded to include Levi's with thin rolled cuffs and bleeding Indian madras shirts made by bleeding Indians. Surf rodders also began to wear their hair longer, bug out their eyes and file their teeth. It was a vain effort: the surf scene faded by decade's end.
Nobody surfed in the 1970s. They were too busy sitting around in their underwear doing blow and listening to the Eagles. More Surf Fashion History
