Shop-eat-surf spoke with Austin Duvall, Co-founder and Creative Director of the Florida-based Duvin Design Company about the brand, what categories are performing, and how working in retail has helped the new brand launch and service accounts.
Austin and his three friends, Garrett Watzka, Shaun O’ Meara and Cam Martin, started Duvin in 2011.
Austin’s parents, Sammy and Susan Duvall, own the high-volume Curl store in Orlando and Austin grew up in the surf industry.
Austin said the Duvin partners spent the first few years getting the manufacturing set up. Today, Duvin can be found in over 50 doors, mostly along the East Coast.
Duvin sells to a mix of surf shops and boutiques, and just recently started to enter West Coast accounts, and showed at Agenda in July. The brand will also be at Surf Expo tomorrow.
“Duvin is definitely surf, and also has a lot of contemporary elements to it, and there are a lot of high-end pieces in the line,” said Austin, when asked to describe the brand’s aesthetic. “There is also a little bit of streetwear with a little pop, and some indie screen prints that you might not normally see from surf brands. We have a broad customer base because we pull from all those angles, but we make sure the lines still flow together.”
Duvin manufactures products in Mexico as well as in Los Angeles and even some items in Florida. Tank tops with a built in sunglasses holder and anything with prints sells best for Duvin.
“We have some pretty unique colors and different styled prints. Whether it’s our wovens or colored T-shirts, florals and patterns do really well for us,” he said.
Austin said the brand’s biggest challenge has been keeping an eye on the manufacturing and trying to reach West Coast doors from the opposite side of the country.
“We’ve had a lot of plane rides back and forth to California,” said Austin, adding that the brand is ready to start pursuing West Coast accounts in a more focused way.
“We didn’t want to come out to California until we were completely dialed in with everything,” he added.
Now that the brand is ready, Austin said Duvin recently added Swell to its list of accounts, and said that the brand had some great meetings at Agenda.
When asked if working in retail has helped Duvin’s working relationships with stores, Austin said his background has been a huge advantage.
“Without retail experience, I don’t think we would have survived early on,” said Austin. “Buying for and working in shops, I definitely learned what buyers want to hear. I personally know what retailers’ frustrations are, so we really make sure that things like short shipping or any of those kinds of problems don’t happen.”
