What Katin is known for
Surfwear label started in 1954 by Nancy and Walter Katin as a boat-cover business in Surfside, California; Walter's heavy canvas became the material for some of the earliest dedicated surf trunks.
Katin began in 1954 when Nancy and Walter Katin opened a small boat-cover business in Surfside, California, making heavy-duty canvas covers reinforced with waxed-nylon thread. When a local teenage surfer asked for shorts that wouldn't chafe like cut-off jeans, Walter adapted his boat-cover canvas into custom surf trunks, making Katin one of California's first makers of trunks built for surfing. Sato Hughes joined as the shop's seamstress in 1961; when Nancy Katin died in 1986, she left the company to Sato, who continued running it with her son Glenn. The business still operates as a surf shop in Huntington Beach.
Best for — Surf Trunks, Coastal
USA
Where next
- Sandqvist — Stockholm
- Western Mountaineering — United States
- Bodeguita Surf Store — Mexico
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