Source: Vans x Textured Waves
I’m a San Diegan living in Memphis. I miss the beach. While Black folks in Daygo often stand next to the ocean and bar-b-que or hoop down in the cove at Mission Beach, there are a small amount of us who move north and hit Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach. Some of us will venture out and boogie board. This is a generalization, but we don’t tend to surf. Every now and then you’d spot a brother or a sister paddling out. I know the people I was walking the boardwalk with we would stand and stare in amazement. San Diego feels like the end of the world and watching surfers paddle out and disappear into a rising sun was terrifying and amazing. We didn’t get to see us do it often. That was years ago. I haven’t lived in San Diego in more than ten years. The last time I went back I stayed in Oceanside. I took my daughter into the ocean so she could feel how the sand shifts and slides under your feet as you wade farther away from the beach. I miss the ocean.
My son decided to attend The U (University of Miami). When we dropped him off for his freshman year, we stayed a bit longer in Miami. We finally got a chance to visit an East Coast beach. It wasn’t the same. There weren’t any surfers or people with boogie boards on the random days we visited. There were people doing photo shoots and families laying out baking in the sun, but there weren’t any crews. Maybe it was the time of day. It didn’t feel the same. My wife took selfies with our daughter. They looked like the women in these photographs of Vans’ new collection. Their natural hair lifting as the invisible breeze moved the ocean to the shore carrying seaweed. The Miami beach was much coarser than I remember San Diego’s beaches being.
Founded in 2019 by Chelsea Woody, Danielle Black Lyons and Martina Duran, Textured Waves sparked a movement to grow the culture around surfing for women of color and underrepresented demographics. Through representation, community and camaraderie, the collective has carved out an inspiring space for others to take the baton and create their own history. The ocean is for everybody, and this new collection from Vans and Textured Waves aims to uplift this inclusive message in the surf community and beyond.
Vans just created a collection featuring women that look like my wife and daughter. It’s beautiful and can exist beyond the beach. It’s clothing that looks like San Diego. It looks like it was made to be on the boardwalk in PB. It looks like a collection made to wear in Miami. It looks like just right.