Nowhere Near the Beach (But Right Where It Needs to Be)

We built a shaping bay in the heart of a major European capital.

Though it sounds absurd when we say it out loud, we’re only about 18 kilometres from our home break, which puts us at a 25-minute drive from our spreadsheets, moodboards, storage, and the tables disappearing under patterns, samples, stationery, and half-eaten sandwiches.

A space opened up, and we decided to move our behind-the-scenes operation, and then some. We found ourselves with extra square metres we couldn’t let go to waste, so we built it: fitted it with tools and vacuum hoses, installed fluorescent lights at surgical height, and painted the whole thing blue, precisely as Yves Klein would’ve wanted.

In recent years, a number of talented surfers who are equally talented behind a planer have become too hard to ignore. Maybe they're disenchanted with the CNC-cut pop-outs filling most surf shop racks, or maybe they're just trying to make sense of how and why something they stand on works, or doesn't. You could dismiss it as a trend, but we see it as a fortunate return to a time when even world champions shaped their own.

They're curious, capable, and a little offended by the idea that understanding your equipment is optional. Which brings us here.

Our bay will be used by the Fairly Normal team (staff, surfers, obsessives) and will host shapers with little to no European presence but every reason to be here. It's our little guest room for the unplatformed and experimental.

Some of what's made here will feed our store racks and make whatever's happening inside the bay visible and tangible outside it, though please don't squeeze the rails. Some boards will be prototypes never to be repeated; others will be custom orders from shapers you don't get to speak to every day.

Soon, you’ll be able to get your hands on one of the first boards born here. Minus the transatlantic freight.