I’m not exactly sure why new apparel startup Amph (short for amphibian) was quietly going along with their business while planning for a stealth launch. Just as the ASR Blog mentioned, I was just recently alerted to Amph through a press release.

It doesn’t really make sense to me that a new company, who has obvious ties to O’neill, would sit out the two biggest trade shows our industry has to offer. None-the-less, Amph is here and after digging around a bit it seems like a fairly interesting model that is poised to progress the sport of surfing.

Pushing the sport of surfing in the name of Amph are Charly Martin, Christophe Allary, Hugo Savalli and Justin Mujica. The four surfers form part of The Amph Program – dedicated to breaking the boundaries of surfing with radical and progressive tricks. With no rules or limitations, the riders will be pushing themselves on the best waves around the world in order to bring something fresh to the sport.

Now here is what I really like about the Amph model, and it’s really a whole other post in itself but I’ll touch on it briefly here. Sponsoring progressive surfers and putting no rules or limitations on them. This is a good move as I see this as the obvious direction that surfing is headed.

I hate to say it because I love surfing for what it is, but you can’t deny that the sport is evolving rapidly. In the last 10 years it’s happened to other sports in our industry, such as skiing and motocross. They both took on serious freestyle movements that refreshed these sports. Surfing is now poised to take on a similar progressive transformation.

With the anticipation of what surfers such as Dane Reynolds and Jordy Smith (not to mention the countless others who aren’t in quite the big spotlight like Jamie O’Brien) are bringing to the table, one can’t help but notice the difference in surfing between the new generation and the old. It’s way more exciting and progressive and you can tell which style the kids prefer. I’m getting ahead of myself though…

Back on the topic of Amph. They are set to launch and should be in stores this coming month. No word yet on which stores will carry this line but I’d imagine they will come out in force as they have O’neill backing them. Will Amph play a role in progressing the sport of surfing? Not really, but it sounds like they’ll be right there to support it.

amph
O’Neill

Tags: O’Neill

Posted by Cameron on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 in Brands, Surfing.

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