MADE IN THE SUN
An Australian icon, built from the sand and grown by a family, celebrates four decades in business.
Sea folly, built from the sand and grown by a family, celebrates four decades in business.
California has its lazy snaking coastal highways, Europe its vertiginous outlooks to hazy blue vanishing points, Asia its soupy equatorial waters skirting beaches tangled in vegetation, and Australia? From the skinny tip of Cape York to the concrete flanks at Clovelly, just try arguing Australians don’t know every beach type, from glassy bays to wind-whipped secret spots. When it comes to the swimsuit then, as Seafolly head designer Genelle Walkom is explaining, it seems we’re serious.
“Australians expect a lot out of their swimwear. It is such a big thing,” Walkom, who has been with the company for more than three decades, says. “We are wearing it for probably at least nine to 10 months of the year.” A small item for some of our overseas land-locked counterparts perhaps, but of quintessence in our wardrobes. It’s why the label can claim, with heritage brands few and far between in our country’s relatively short fashion history, the role of experts.
“They are looking to us to lead the way when it comes to swimwear,” says Seafolly CEO Anthony Halas of the international market. When the brand was nearing four decades in business in 2014, the private equity arm of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, L Capital, invested significantly, taking them
on as swimwear specialists. That’s no small accolade, given this is the luxury conglomerate that owns Emilio Pucci, Kenzo and Fendi, among others.
Chalk it up to geographic isolation, or stubbornly sticking to what they know, but the brand has never taken its cues from anywhere other than home soil. Walkom recalls a time in the 1980s when the Paris metro was plastered with Seafolly posters following Galeries Lafayette’s decision to stock the label. It was the age of brash athleticism and the unapologetically body beautiful, when models like Elle Macpherson dominated magazine covers. Seafolly was churning out activewear and swimsuits in splashy brights and Australiana prints in ultra skimpy cuts. “It was what we were good at and it was so different from everyone else,” she remembers. “Europeans were still working with dark colours and being very sophisticated and glitzy, whereas in Australia it was the complete opposite. It was really unique to us.”
It was Anthony’s father Peter Halas, who, arriving here as an immigrant from Hungary in 1956, relished and immersed himself in the beach culture in Sydney. He met his wife Yvonne on the steps at Bondi below the pavilion. “For them, the Australian beach lifestyle was a dream,” Anthony says, recalling family day trips. “We were at Bondi Beach and Camp Cove in Watsons Bay on the weekend. We loved it.”
After selling his share of another swim label where he had worked as a salesman, Peter started his own company in 1975, melding his sales skills with a love of the sea and sand. Then called Peter’s Folly, in reference to striking out on his own, it made denim, before a debut swim line, which was sold to Myer for $261. Hard work by the whole family grew the label. “It was like the fifth family member at the dinner table,” says Anthony. “I remember [Dad] just coming home and going to sleep because he was so tired.”
With more than 1,200 stores in 46 countries and L Capital the majority stakeholder, Seafolly manages to maintain a family feel owing to Anthony’s influence. It’s also come far from its preLycra, cotton and terry-towelling days. “It’s hard to really put your finger on it, but it’s fashionable but wearable and translating those things into swimwear for the Australian market means a fresh take on prints, fit and quality,” surmises Walkom.
Cast around any baking stretch of sand, ocean pool or resort town in Australia and you wouldn’t be looking long for a Seafolly label. Now the brand is aiming to replicate this worldwide. “We want to make it into a global iconic swimwear brand. In the heyday there were the surf brands, which are not so great today compared to what they were 15 to 20 years ago. We want Seafolly to stand for that in the world of beach and swim internationally.” Design-wise that means “brighter, cleaner” as Walkom describes it. Not unlike the Australian sun under which it was born.