Professional longboarder Kassia Meador joined the Pro Surf Team in 1997, made a surf movie called Fashion, and designs a line of wetsuits with Roxy Japan.
So you design wetsuits for Roxy?
Yes! The second collection just launched, the first collection was out last year and were working on the third right now and its been going good so far. Weve been selling through each time. One of the pieces was on the cover of Womens Health, which is awesome!
Its been a really wonderful transition. Ive been with the brand for a long time and its nice to fill a place in the market for something different
[something] more from a surfers standpoint.
So coming from an athletes perspective, when you were designing, how did that affect your design process?
Function, and how it works is the most important thing. So, its all about functionality, but also looking cool in the water. My main thing is comfort and function, and then from there I go towards what looks cool, what do I want to wear? [...] Im going for making women feel beautiful and empowered before they even get into the water and then they can bring that with them into the water and translate it into surfing the best that they possibly can.
Do you ever see people wearing your designs?
Yes
[but] I mean its pretty new. Last year being the first year we launched, its just really starting to catch on now and its wonderful to go down to the beach and see people wearing my wetsuits that I didnt give to them, you know?
Im surfing and women and men will actually come up to me. Women come up and say things like Wow thanks so much, Im so stoked theres something different out there in the market. And obviously, with Cynthia [Rowley]s and other suits, there are a lot of people really working on wetsuits right now, which is really wonderful, especially for women. And then even guys come up to me and are like, Hey thanks for making cute suits, were excited to see the girls out here wearing something that doesnt look like us. It sets women apart and I think that everybodys excited about the suits.
Whats the one new trend in athletic wear that youre really excited about right now?
I think the most fun thing for me right now is the wetsuits because theyve been so boring for so long throughout just the entire surf industry. Everybody just had black wetsuits, and they werent doing that much stuff with them.
Its an exciting time and I feel like in a lot of ways, what Roxy did with Lisa Anderson, and making a womens specific board short
I feel like theyre really changing the way the entire industry looks at wetsuits just like they changed the entire way the industry looked at board shorts back in the past. So, its a new platform for them to just kind of retake womens sports to another level, womens surfing to another level
its pretty rad, its an exciting time.
