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product of the resin (think somewhere between wal
king in a pine forest and a sauna). I think it’s been received well because of these things, and also for the plain and simple fact that it performs well. Often natural substitutes are a poor alternative to the synthetic option but after years of tweaking and feedback from people who surf far better than us, our wax actually works. – How did you land on a product that seems to redefine what surf wax can be? By total accident. There’s a guy called Cyrus Sutton who is an American surfer/climate activist/filmmaker. He has a site called Korduroy which was a fairly regular source of inspiration for us. A few years ago they produced a short video about making your own wax from natural ingredients and we started messing about with it for our own use. From there the idea of traceability came in and a year later we stumbled upon a 4th ingredient which made us think we might have something. – Where did your relationship with surfing and its community begin? I’m from Galway and basically grew up in the water in Connemara. From the age of six, I was windsurfing, which after 12 years became kitesurfing and then ultimately surfing. I’m acutely aware of just how lucky I was to have a childhood like that – I’ve been permanently connected to the ocean ever since. – Can you explain a little about how Others came to be? Who are the people behind Others? Others is basically a passion project between two designers, Eoin McNally and myself. We met in NCAD (years ago) studying product design and then pretty much learned to surf together during our four years there. Once we graduated and got real jobs we had less time to make the trips west and Others came about as a way to stay connected to surf and the sea. We started out building boards one day a week in the basement of a studio I had off Holles Street, and that grew to include more projects and ideas. – Is Others a labour of love, a means of escape or other focus, and is the hope to grow it to become your full-time vocation? It’s most definitely the first two! A labour of love with a healthy dose of escapism thrown in... if our focus for the project was to make money I think we would have both checked out years ago! Joking aside – the motivation always has been to find a way to remain in touch with the sea and how our roles as designers can (and does) affect the planet. We often daydream about it becoming the day job, but you’d have to sell a shitload of surf wax to get there. – I see you give your project Status Updates on your site. Why is that? The status updates seem like a natural way to show that this is one big ongoing experiment. When you’re developing new ideas or new ways of doing existing things a lot of the time you come to a dead end or fail entirely. Take the black board project which is up there for example. We upcycled a giant block of EPS foam left over from a client project into two boards for ourselves. These failed spectacularly, heating up in the sun and basically exploding (the entire base of mine delaminated on a wave in Easkey). So the status updates let us show failures as well as successes. – Surf and design have long been harmonious bedfellows. Who are the mavericks in the space, in the products, the packaging, the magazines, the culture, etc.? The people who carved the groove for others to follow? They go hand in hand. One of the reasons we felt confident taking our first steps in shaping boards was because sculpting foam was already part of our language as product designers. There are so many people and companies doing great things across surfing that it’s pretty hard to list them all here with any kind of logic… so here’s a random collection; Ryan Lovelace, Ryan Burch, Parley, Yvon Chounard and Patagonia, Otter Surfboards, Backwash magazine, Danny Hess, and way too many others to mention… weareothers.com – Your product is unlike others on the market, for many reasons. Can you give me a quick overview of what sets you apart, and why the products you make have been received and reviewed so well? Our first product is an organic surf wax called #WoodstoWaves. Surf wax is a product you apply onto your board to improve grip, and generally speaking they are made from petroleumbased ingredients. In fact one big irony of surfing is that much of the products we use to enjoy what nature offers us are in fact pretty horrendous environmentally. So our wax has only four ingredients all of which are organic. It gets its stickiness from Pine Resin which we collect from Irish forests, its bulk from Irish beeswax, its softness from organic oils and there’s a fourth top secret ingredient which is also 100% natural. Every bar we make is stamped with the source forest so you know exactly where it came from, and they smell pretty incredible as a by – How important is the community to you and your future success? How do you mobilise them, keep them involved and interested and helping you innovate in your activities? We were blown away by the community interest and involvement when we introduced it. It’s something we want to integrate into a lot of what we do, but it’s also something that we need to make sure can be matched from our side. As I type, I have packets of resin collected by our (incredible) community collectors which haven’t yet made it to bars of wax, this kind of thing keeps me awake at night. – Where to escape to… The best surf breaks in Ireland? You know they’re all top secret right? – The bucket list surf adventure you have yet to make? Lofoten Islands in Norway. – The oceans have long been seen as a playground but in more recent times have become a battleground for ecological challenges facing mankind and marine life too. What can people do to help? Yeah as I mentioned above there’s something very wrong when the toys and equipment we use to enjoy the ocean are made from some seriously nasty stuff. So from a “play” perspective, I think it’s our responsibility to consider the alternatives to the cheaper mass-produced option. The good news is that they are out there and they are great. Patagonia and Finisterre both have Yulex (natural rubber) wetsuits and shapers are building flax fabrics, eco foams and bio-resins into their boards. Start with those and then see if you can rethink the other objects that surround them. – What’s your longterm goal for Others? How do you see it developing over the coming years? Eoin and I both have dreams of a workshop and studio beside a long right hand point break, producing our own products and doing something good for the world in the process. The dream stays the same but we need to focus on doing what we think is good work, and that’s not necessarily commercially driven. Obviously if you’re reading this, have loads of cash and want to invest it in a fledgling surf project send us a mail. 17