July 2024. Sunburn Store is now happy to introduce the Byron Bay based brand, SHADE AT MOTION, S.A.M, to our curated collection, in Biarritz.< Discover an interview with his founder Sam.
When did it all start and how did you come up with the idea of Shade At Motion? It started roughly halfway through 2019. I have always been a hat boy and was wearing my day to day hats in the surf at the pass in Byron bay. I lost a few good hats like that! I had always wanted to run my own business of some sort and I didn’t really like any of the surf hats on the market at the time. Mostly just gray or black bucket style hats. I started drawing up a few ideas in a notebook and before I knew it was testing prototypes with Vinny in the surf. I’m not sure if it’s important to say I had never designed a brand or product before, I didn’t know what a tech pack was and even tried to use a hand drawing as my final design before prototyping. The design changed a few times along the way but all the core elements of the hat were in these initial drawings. There’s a few photos here of Jake and I in the prototyping phase (screen grabbed from a handy cam) and the. One of me with the final prototype.
3 words to qualify the S.A.M Surf hats? Streamlined, attractive, and effective.
Do you feel younger since wearing them? It’s easy to cop a facial beating growing up surfing, directly soaking up U.V and salt for hours, it cooks your eyes too. All my friends who wear S.A.M. Hats have considerably slowed this process. Smooth youthful, soft skin. Jakes pterygiums even started retracting
What’s on for S.A.M this year? I’ve been experimenting with some one off dyed numbers this year and have a new colourway aimed for December release. I’m heading to Japan in September / October to meet and surf with some of the ‘Ride Surf and Sport’ crew there that wear the S.A.M hats.
Any chance to see you around Biarritz this Summer? I wish! It’s been on my list since I was a grom. Maybe next year?