The Rise and Fall of Australia's Surf Capital: Torquay

In 1969, in a sleepy beach town at the end of the Great Ocean Road, two groups of surfers started making wetsuits and boardshorts in sheds. Within a generation, that one little town — Torquay — was dressing every surfer on Earth. Rip Curl and Quiksilver were both born here, a few streets apart, beside the sacred waves of Bells Beach. Then came Billabong up north, and suddenly Australian surfwear was a multi-billion-dollar global empire: logos on every schoolbag, stores in every mall from California to Paris, an Easter contest at Bells that became surfing's holy grail. And then the empire wiped out. The brands went public, chased the malls, and lost the surfers. Quiksilver went bankrupt. Billabong — once valued in the billions — was swallowed for scraps. Today the famous names live on as licensed labels owned by a US conglomerate, and the stores are closing around the world. This is the story of Torquay: the town that built the surf industry, watched it conquer the planet — and watched it drown. Subscribe to After the Boom. #Torquay #BellsBeach #Australia