Founded by Bob Hurley, Hurley is a clothing company that is located in Costa Mesa, California. The main inspiration behind the clothing is to pay attention to the skateboarding and surf cultures that are so prevalent in California. The company quickly started to gain recognition when bands and celebrities started wearing their clothing and helping to promote the brand.
The history of clothing company has roots that go back much further than the actually clothing aspect of the company. Originally, Hurley was a surf company that produced surf boards. In 1979, Hurley Surfboards was opened in Costa Mesa, California and right into the early 80’s has much success as Bob was known for producing surfboards for some of the most popular surfers in the world. Many people are unaware how Hurley actually took the leap from being a just another surf company to being the clothing company that is quickly becoming a household name. The way that the company made the transition came from Bob being inspired by an Australian clothing company called Billabong. At the time, Billabong were one of the only companies that were producing the long, punk rock style boarder shorts that are so common these days. Bob was attracted to this style and thought that it had legs among the surf and skate community and also the rest of America. After pursuing the company with help from his friends, family, and business manager, he was able to establish Billabong USA and become a licensee of Billabong. By the middle of the 80’s Bob had helped to shape the company into a fairly successful, small clothing company. By the time 1995 rolled around, Hurley started realizing that in order to remain successful they were going to have to appeal to the modern surfer and person of the punk rock culture. They quickly started to notice that the modern person was actually not only interested in surfing but also things like music, art, fashion, skateboarding, and snowboarding.
By the end of 1998, Bob and the company started to realize that the vision of the company didn’t necessarily fit the view of what Billabong was trying to do. Luckily for Bob and Hurley as a company, the licensing agreement between Billabong and Hurley was coming to an end. Rather than renew the licensing agreement, Hurley decided to take their chances and fulfill their new vision by launching Hurley as its own clothing company. When the company started there sales were already at 70 million dollars giving them the confidence to carry out their new business plan. The first year of Hurley as its own independent company was a huge success. None of the 150 employees that they employed had to be let go and the company actually made profit. Today Hurley is a mainstay of the surf and skate clothing industry and is slated to be one of the biggest companies in the industry in the near future.
