Haydenshapes is riding the RTW wave into season 2
If you’re a surf fan in any capacity, you’ve no doubt come across Haydenshapes. Founded by Hayden Cox at age 15, Haydenshapes has over the past 25 years grown into a powerhouse of surf performance, design and innovation. That’s surely enough to keep someone busy, right? Not Hayden, who rather than settling with perfecting a singular craft, is driven by curiosity and is hellbent on the process of translating an idea into reality.
Hot on the heels of launching his debut RTW line in August, comes POST SURF / NEW WAVE, a 48-piece continuation of the Haydenshapes fashion project, that lends a unique surf lens to contemporary men’s RTW.
To celebrate the launch of Haydenshapes Season 2, we ventured out to the Factory/Studio space in Sydney’s Northern Beaches to get a preview of the new collection and catch a glimpse of the magician in action. We got hands on too, creating a coat hanger out of bio-resin and Merino wool offcuts saved from the production process – because reimagining waste has become increasingly important to the brand in recent years. This commitment to sustainability carries through into the fashion side of the business too – with buttons on the garments being made out of fiberglass salvaged from the studio during the surfboard shaping process.
For the latest release, Haydenshapes retains its emphasis on utility – featuring many of the oversized pocket details and graphic elements introduced in season 1. Though for Season 2, POST SURF / NEW WAVE introduces more tailoring and a further exploration of versatile swim pieces – creating a capsule wardrobe that easily transports the wearer from beach to boeing and beyond.
Where the first collection focused largely on a neutral colour palette and building a range of core silhouettes, this collection is infused with iridescent colour – inspired by the way light reflects off the water out in the surf. On his design inspiration, Hayden says “Our season 2 collection takes artistic cues from the chemical rainbow that’s created when oil and water collide. The iridescent region that sits on the water's surface continues to evolve and change depending on which angle you look at it from”.
Season 2 also brings with it a partnership with The Woolmark Company, with the pair collaborating to explore the new uses for Merino wool in a 12-piece capsule collection that completely defies long standing perceptions of how wool is used in fashion. If, like us, you’ve long associated wool with an itchy cardigan your grandmother once knitted for you as a child, then imagine our shock at discovering that Haydenshapes is actually exploring the use of wool as a core fiber in the design of future swim pieces. Wool board shorts might seem like a strange concept from the outset, but upon learning of wool’s natural properties – it’s another perfect example of Haydenshapes’ commitment to innovation in design. Oh and those Dion Lee wetsuits we keep mentioning… yep, those are lined with wool too.
Usually we’d ask talent what’s next and often they have trouble answering because they haven’t thought that far ahead. Though with Haydenshapes, the challenge comes in determining where to begin. For one, there’s the Dion Lee collab coming right around the corner. Then, there’s more collaborations underway – one exploring object design and the materiality of resin, and another that picks up where another left off 😉 – that’s all without the custom surfboard requests and putting the finishing touches on Season 3.
Haydenshapes Season 2 is available online now at Haydenshapes. Surf’s up!
Words - Tom Ryan
