vision

surfing in general is a very complicated organism. trying to place yourself within that organism is even more complicated.

i started escential with the vision to offer the "retro", "vintage", "minimalistic" products. i looked to start a company with a grass roots following, without all the bullshit. the difficult thing is to try to put it into words. escential was created exactly a year ago, and sometimes i feel my message is vague.

By trying to create a product with all of the previous qualities, a company sometimes pigeon holes themselves. For example, Patagonia give to the earth. I am not sure what Matuse gives back to. I am not sure if you even have to give back. I want to give back to the person and people that buy our products. I want to try to create some sort of connection with the surfers themselves. surf companies in today's market try to fill this void everyday, but usually fail. With either art contests, product designs, 1%, etc., all of these are very interesting yet somehow they feel very distant. i have trouble relating with any of these concepts, and i am not sure if i am the only one. I am attracted to waves, swells, tides, winds, boards, and anything that is escential to me being able to surf the next "perfect" wave. everyone has their own "escential" list to surfing. Mine is a board, wax, board shorts, wetsuit, and wave. I fell like if you had these five things, at any given moment surfing could take place. but, there are issues with each of them, and not only that, your "classification" as a surfer comes from each of these categories. For example, if i surfed a 5'10" thruster, with neon colored board shorts, in a head high wave, in the middle of a crowd, i would be considered a "typical" shortboarder (just and opinion). On the other hand, if i surfed a single fin 9'7" log, with birdwell boardshorts, in a waist high wave, in the middle of now where, i would be considered a "typical' longboarder. neither of them are the right ways to go, but for some reason there is a pull from either direction like one is better than the other. i often think it is human nature to create conflict. even with a beautiful, spiritual, peaceful, and demanding "activity" such as surfing, we find a way to pigeon hole ourselves and create an unspoken conflict. I am kinda rambling, but it was on my mind..... maybe i will be able to finish one day