It’s no secret that we dig stylish, expertly crafted threads but when a brand exercises genuine love and appreciation towards its customers, the environment and selected charities, our hearts turn into putty and we are only too happy to hand over our dollar bills for a slice of the action.
British brand Finisterre specializes in creating intuitive, innovative clothing for cold water surfers. Tom Kay, a keen surfer who was born and bread on the Cornish coast of Finisterre, St Agnes, established the label in 2002. Kay was only too familiar with the perils of surfing in the icy Celtic Sea. With zero design experience under his belt, Kay set out to create a brand that superseded the big corporate surfwear companies that were “making cheap cotton t-shirts in far-flung, unnamed factories that they’d sell to folk that had never been near the water”.
The design ethos was both ethical and technical and Finisterre’s first product, the technical fleece, designed for surfers to wear immediately after getting out of the sea, soon became known within the local surf community and the brand’s success grew from there.
The current collection is vast and features everything a chilly surfer could possibly want. Our favorite pieces are the Petrichor Water Repellent Shirt which draws inspiration from fisherman’s smocks and bib trousers and the windproof, water resistant Nimbus jacket, both designed for cold water surfing but absolutely ideal for the February freeze.
