A Gold Coast-based textile screen printing company is set to mark an operational milestone after 40 years in the surf industry.
From the earliest Billabong and Mango printed apparel through to women’s swimwear labels Cheetah and Kulu Atoll, Print ‘n Wear has had a hand in producing attire across generations.
The Currumbin-based screen printing operation is turning 40 this year, company co-founder Carl Birch confirmed.
The t-shirt and contract textile screen printing facility sprang into existence in 1977 to service the then-fledgling surfwear industry.
Birch said it may just outlast some of the giant brands that outgrew their factory’s production capacity in decades prior.
“With the state of the surf industry, who knows? We were there in the beginning, and we may just be around to see it to the finish,” he said.
Birch and his wife Gail stepped into the world of screen printing, fashion and textiles by chance.
In the mid 1970’s Gail was working on producing commercial art for a small local screen-printing operation, and the owner was keen to sell the business.
Carl had purchased a few Dewey Weber-branded t-shirts (Dewey being a well respected surfer and surfboard manufacturer of the era) through a US surf magazine and thought something similar could be done locally.
“We saw an opportunity to fill a void with surf print tees,” he said.
Rustling up a loan, they hastily set about learning all they could about screen printing whilst asking around in local surf shops for business.
Soon they were producing short runs of t-shirts branded with surf shop logo artwork for stores like Burleigh’s Hot Stuff.
Pre modern surf label era, many of these shops only sold a smattering of hardware and rudimentary wetsuits, yet had cult-like followings.
The t-shirts sold swiftly.
Meanwhile the first upshoots of the surf industry were emerging, and Print ‘n Wear found its feet by supplying custom projects for up and coming brands, like placement prints on collared shirts for surf wear-label Mango on the cusp of their meteoric rise.
Billabong were also starting to make inroads with their new board short label, and Print ‘n Wear were soon printing t-shirts for their team riders and printing their flouro-blended board shorts.
It was these team rider t-shirts for Billabong that first tipped Carl and Gail off that this cottage industry-like surf wear caper could blossom into something big.
“One minute we’re doing short runs of a hundred promo t-shirts for Billabong’s surf team, the next it was a thousand – the demand to dress like a sponsored surfer by wearing the same shirt was already there. It was the beginning of the trend, turning away from the understated surf style of the 70’s; everyone wanted to look the part. We grew to meet the demand requirements.”
In 1978, Carl and Gail also spotted another hole in the market; there wasn’t any women’s products in surf shops yet.
Gail started swimwear label Cheetah, which quickly grew to become one of Australia’s largest swim brands.
During those heady days the label sold $1 million worth of swimwear in one year to America alone, and the factory expanded to employ 130 staff plus contractors.
The duo later sold the label, and started a fresh new brand to fill the void called Kulu Atoll/Kulu, which they retired in 2012.
Over the last 20 years, as major label’s mass production requirements began to far outstrip Print ‘ Wear’s production capacity and offshoring apparel manufacturing to places like China became the new industry normal, Print ‘n Wear found itself slowly moving full circle.
At peak production, Print ‘n Wear had two large automatic machines capable of printing thousands of garments a day, but they’ve sold them now.
“The overheads were crazy, and we found we were working constantly just to feed the machines.” Carl said.
They’re now back to doing specialised small runs of hand screen prints.
Just like when they first set up factory, their clientele is mainly surf stores, bands, events and small up-and-coming clothing labels.
Carl claims moving back to hand printing has been a good move, as they enjoy helping out new and independents labels and local creatives. And they’re still busy – most months they’re running at full capacity – but on a variety of niche projects instead of big bulk orders.
While they still own the business Carl and Gail are supposedly officially in retirement – the operational day-to-day of the factory is now overseen by the capable son Alan, who is now MD.
Despite the difficult financial terrain facing some of surfing’s biggest brands, Carl thinks there’s still room for label newcomers.
“It’s difficult as all the stores are corporate stores these days. And there’s the whole social media element to master. But there’s a return to smaller, less mass-produced goods. And there will always, always be girls continuing to look for new and exciting swimwear.”