Johannesburg — SA's multimillion-rand teenage fashion industry is riding a lucrative new wave

TEENAGE girls in South Africa are stoked about surfing and savvy marketers are jumping in to grab a slice of this multimillion-rand market.

Riding the wave are international and local surfing brands such as Quiksilver and Lizard, which are producing beachware specifically for coastal and inland girls who identify with the surfing lifestyle.

The hugely successful 2002 surf film Blue Crush helped accelerate a trend which has also seen the big clothing retailers either stock surf brands or create their own ranges.

Says John McCarthy, associate publisher of Saltwater Girl magazine: "Most of the girls who read us are not surfers. They aspire to the surfing head-space, which is associated with freedom, healthy outdoor living and self-expression."

As a measure of the rise of surfer girl-power, the circulation of the three-year-old Saltwater Girl is now double that of Zigzag, its sistermagazine at Atoll Media, a division of Touchline Media.

Of Saltwater Girl's sales of 29000, landlocked Gauteng claims the biggest slice, 35%, while Western Cape makes up 20% of sales and KwaZulu-Natal 15%, says McCarthy.

The readership age ranges from 14 to 24, with the core being 16 years old.

Saltwater Girl started out as a surfing magazine but has become a broader lifestyle magazine, covering subjects from dating to "wild" after-school gap-year options.

Roxy - the teen-girl label started 13 years ago by Quiksilver - now accounts for about 35% of the company's annual billion-dollar turnover, says Barry Wolins, head of merchandising and marketing at Quiksilver's South African arm.

Locally, Roxy merchandise accounts for 40% of Quiksilver's annual turnover, he says, though he declines to name a figure.

Surveys by youth marketing and research firm Logistix Kids SA shows that surf brands dominate among white girls and boys, says Andrea Kraushaar, the company's strategic planning and research manager.

Black teens also buy them, but aspire more to the hip-hop lifestyle, she says.

Roxy's sponsored surfing clinics for girls and its Roxy Wahine Cup surfing competition for teenage girls and adult women has helped make it the market leader.

About 400 teenage girls of varying skill take part in the Saturday morning surfing clinics in Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.

These grew from a December surfing "tour" along the coast, offering girls an introductory surfing day.

All the surf labels stress the importance of having staff who live the lifestyle themselves, and Wolins attributes Roxy's success to its marketing team being made up entirely of women under the age of 25.

"That's what it makes it real. We don't put in an older surfer guy or, like a lot of companies might, bring in an old guy from Johannesburg."

The market is sought-after because teenagers have more disposable income than ever before.

But girls are demanding consumers, warns Brad Bricknell, former marketing manager of the local division of Billabong, which has a Billabong Girls label.

"They're brand-conscious, but not as brand-loyal as the guys," says Bricknell. "Boys will stick to one brand for years, whereas girls tend to be more fickle."

Chris Hall-Jones, a partner in local label Lizard, which created the Lizzy label for girls four years ago, says surf labels have managed to create a unique market where the big active-wear labels such as Nike and Adidas have failed.

Teenage girls are keen on clothing labels to call their own as an expression of their independence, he says, rather than sharing them with adult women or their boyfriends.

"Girls today don't feel disadvantaged in any way," McCarthy says. "The girls who read Saltwater Girl want to grow up to be racing car drivers and aeroplane pilots... They're interested in surfing, skate-boarding, DJ-ing and being in bands - all the things that seemed to be the preserve of boys a decade ago - but they're still very feminine."