Surfing is no longer about sleeping in vans and smoking weed on the beach all day. The sport has gone pro and big brands like Breitling are looking to the waves for ambassadors
When it comes to surfing locations around the world, Scandinavia isn't always top of mind for most. Yet the region has a growing reputation for its waves and those that ride them. “Coming from Sweden and being a surfer aren’t two things regularly intertwined – especially on a professional level,” admits Swedish pro-surfer Freddie Meadows. “I was introduced to wave-riding when the Swedish surf team was compared to the Jamaican bobsled team.”
Indeed, while some were making Cool Runnings references, it took a visit to warmer climes for Meadows’ surfing story to really begin. “My dad was a fashion designer, and had a friend in Portugal whose son was a surfer. I spent some time with him and soon realised it was one of the coolest sports ever. A life of no rules. That changed everything for me.”
Freddie Meadows. Photo: Breitling
His dad, who took up surfing when he was 51, inspired Meadows to get on the board and try some waves himself.
“Since my first wave in Sweden, aged 13, I have navigated my way to making surfing my life,” he says. “After ten years of competing, I finally realised that surfing was so much more to me than winning and losing. Instead, I left the competitive scene and decided to embark on a childhood dream of finding world-class waves along the Swedish and Scandinavian coastlines, with the Baltic being my main focus.”
Meadows’ pursuits have garnered him attention not just from within surfing circles, but also from some big brands. He is a Breitling Ambassador and a member of the watch brand’s Surfer Squad, a status he has enjoyed since 2018 when he was approached by someone from the label’s Swedish marketing team with a straightforward statement: “You need a watch.”
Irene Saderini.
Meadows is not the only surfer to have been signed up by the luxury timepiece-maker. A year after he took the helm as Breitling CEO in 2017, Georges Kern realised that the life lived on a surfboard was an aspirational one for people across the globe. In the wake of the Covid pandemic, that feeling has only been reinforced, with people longing for the outdoors and a life lived without restrictions.
Once associated with a bit of a slacker mindset, surfing has gone pro and is now an Olympic sport. No more living out of a van and smoking weed on the beach every day – it is a sport that promotes a healthy body and mind.
American surf veteran and long-time pro Kelly Slater has been connected to Breitling for several years and with him as inspiration, Breitling looked deeper into the surf culture and lifestyle. Breitling’s Surfer Squad was put together in 2018 to “reflect the brand's dynamic values: action, purpose, and pioneering spirit.” The inaugural squad included Slater, the most successful surfer of all time, and two brilliantly talented Australian women, Stephanie Gilmore and Sally Fitzgibbons.
Andrew Cotton, Irene Saderini, and Freddie Meadows. Photo: Breitling
Breitling has also enhanced its environmental engagement with a partnership with Outerknown, a sustainable apparel manufacturer co-founded by Kelly Slater. Outerknown is surfer slang for the other, unseen side of a wave. The brand makes sustainable clothing with more than 90 per cent of its products made from organic, recycled, or regenerated materials. Together with Breitling, Outerknown offers NATO straps for their watches, made of Econyl yarn which is created from recycled fishing nets and other nylons.
"We believe in the power of a team, the strength of a group, and the mutual identification of a common target, which ultimately leads to success,” says Kern of the Surfer Squad “With our squad of champion surfers, who are also some of the world’s leading advocates for the health of our oceans and beaches, we have a formidable team and some amazing shared goals.”
The impressive Surfers Squad, committed to maintaining clean oceans and beaches, is a perfect expression of Breitling’s passion for water, which, along with air and land, have been the Swiss watch manufacturers' thematic pillars for decades. So it was perhaps only a matter of time before Breitling's Swedish marketing department contacted Meadows.
Freddie Meadows. Photo: Breitling
“Breitling was very direct. No sweet talk,” he recalls of the brand’s approach. “I told them that I did not need a watch. That surfers don’t need to wear a watch.” That was then. This is now. And Kern has not only convinced many a surfer that they do in fact need a watch, but has also put a lot of effort into promoting the surfing lifestyle within the company.
“Surfing today is about freedom. It’s about nature and carpe diem,” he explains. “Luxury is very much about dreaming. And the reason why we do not communicate this SuperOcean as a dive watch is that nobody dives 300 metres below the surface. Instead, we want to communicate a relaxed lifestyle, which surfing is all about. The surfing lifestyle corresponds well with our neo-luxury way of thinking.”
Despite being water resistant to 300 metres, the new SuperOcean is not marketed as a “divers watch” but, instead, as a timepiece to be worn on the beach, in the beach club at night or even at the office.
Offered in three materials – steel, bronze, and steel/gold – the Breitling SuperOcean ticks all the boxes of neo-luxury. “We are probably the most anti-metaverse watch company,” jokes Kern. Instead, Breitling prefers to communicate a life lived outside – real, human experiences. For Kern and Breitling, neo-luxury is about enjoying nature. And there are few better ways to connect with nature than by grabbing a surfboard and riding the waves.