Fernando Aguerre — the man who took happiness off an Argentine beach and spread it Latin-style to the coolest stores and showrooms in California and the world — is, at the moment, not wholly happy. He’s in about the most pain of his life, suffering a herniated disc caused by lifting two antique balsa-wood surfboards in a Peruvian airport when his driver was late.
“It’s like I’m in jail!” says Aguerre, 53, grimacing. He is co-founder, with his brother Santiago, 51, of Reef, the sandal and surf fashion empire they sold in 2002 and 2005 to VF Corp. for about $100 million. After 20 years in the business, they took their top employees to Fiji for a week of surfing and at the end, at a dinner on a yacht, they said, “We’re selling.”
“Life is too short. Don’t waste it. Go surfing.”
This was Aguerre’s favorite slogan at Reef. It branded the company — along with Brazilian girls in bikinis and surfers having fun, and palm trees swaying in a tropical breeze.
Branding is everything to Aguerre. Branding is what made the brothers rich.
And branding — the rebranding of America — is the way out of this country’s long, dark financial debauchery, Aguerre believes, the escape from our decade adrift in the horse latitudes, our loser doldrums. We are, after all, the nation of Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Jeep and Timberland.
“I’m just a serious guy who cracks a lot of jokes,” said Fernando Aguerre, who along with his brother cofounded Reef, where it was OK to be an hour late to work when the surf was up. John R. McCutchen • U-T“Why do you think VF bought Timberland for $2 billion? It’s an American brand! They think there’s way more money in an American brand. They’re going to open a million stores. VF (the largest apparel company in the world) is $10 billion. Nike is $20 billion. And VF realized that it is action brands that are bringing equity and growing. Listen to the CEO’s quarterly report. How are you going to grow Lee and Wrangler? There are no more cowboys. People don’t want to be cowboys. People want to be Kelly Slater and Tony Hawk. PPR owns Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Yet last month they bought Volcom for $600 friggin’ million. There is only one ideology left in the world, and that is consumption, and consumption is led by brands! I’m not saying I like unbridled capitalism because I’ve seen the downside. But if we lose the American dream, there will be nothing left for America to sell!”
Politics concern Aguerre not just because he is a political animal from a country (Argentina) where politics is a life-and-death game, but because a prosperous country is a happy country and happiness sells.
“Look,” Aguerre lifts himself off the couch, “this is the best south swell in 11 years and I can’t surf it!”
Surfing was there before the Aguerres, of course, and surf fashion, too, but the brothers brought a certain Latin DNA to it all.
“I looked at the American surf magazines. We couldn’t afford radio or TV, and I thought what is this, all these guys in the same wet suits, similar bathing suits, shot by the same photographers? Last time I looked, surfers, most of them, liked girls, and there were no girls. … So we submitted a picture of a Reef girl, and the magazine refused to print it. I told the editor, OK, then I want a blank page, with the type: This magazine refuses to print what you can see in — I mentioned their main rival — and in 30 minutes, I get a call back. We had our first good ad.”
At Reef in San Diego, everybody was allowed to come to work an hour late, provided (1) there was at least 4-foot surf and (2) they brought in a wet suit, wet. Business meetings ended up with a party at Fernando’s house.
Some people say Fernando and Santiago still give the best parties in La Jolla. To be sure, the brothers’ annual Liquid Nation Ball (Saturday, $300 a ticket) is not Las Patronas (charity group), ballroom dancing at the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club. This is Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers wailing away on guitar as Fernando auctions off his own clothes to the highest bidder down to some crazy black-striped skivvies that maybe Greg Noll wore back in the day and high-fashion, low-clothing Argentine hat models dance with pro surfers like Rob Machado shaking his locks and Kelly Slater, probably not shaking his, while Che (the original Michael Korda negative) and Gandhi and Obama (body surfing) smile down.
All in the name of boobies.
Aguerre explains: “I was one day floating in the pool after my disc went wrong. I could have been dead. I could have had a heart attack … I could have been a cripple not able to walk. Something like this happens, and you realize how many things you need to do. How you have let some of your intense passions, your hopes, escape from you. ‘Life is what happened when you were busy having other plans!’ ” he quotes John Lennon.
“I am now focused on Liquid Nation, raising as much money as I can for Shaney jo Darden and cancer education for young girls, (Aguerre has 15-year-old triplets of his own) the humanitarian award at the Liquid Nation Ball. She told me they have 8 million ‘I love boobies’ wrist bands now in their Keep A Breast campaign.” He jumps into a laugh.
Aguerre hobbles to the door. “This rich guy comes and wants to buy my house for many millions of dollars,” he says. “I look around. I check out other houses. But where am I going to move? I’m just a poor Latin immigrant!”
“Steve,” he calls after me, “I’m just a serious guy who cracks a lot of jokes. You ever read Castaneda?”
I’m firing up my electric Dog Leg bike. “Yeah, back in the day.”
“Death is the best adviser. When you’re worrying about this and that, Death says, ‘Nothing matters if I touch you!’ Death is always around. Some stupid drunk driver hits you on that electric bike. A pilot takes a bad sleeping pill that didn’t fade out in his system and poof, that’s it for me.”
Surf fashion — it’s a lighthearted business, at the top.
“It’s like I’m in jail!” says Aguerre, 53, grimacing. He is co-founder, with his brother Santiago, 51, of Reef, the sandal and surf fashion empire they sold in 2002 and 2005 to VF Corp. for about $100 million. After 20 years in the business, they took their top employees to Fiji for a week of surfing and at the end, at a dinner on a yacht, they said, “We’re selling.”
“Life is too short. Don’t waste it. Go surfing.”
This was Aguerre’s favorite slogan at Reef. It branded the company — along with Brazilian girls in bikinis and surfers having fun, and palm trees swaying in a tropical breeze.
Branding is everything to Aguerre. Branding is what made the brothers rich.
And branding — the rebranding of America — is the way out of this country’s long, dark financial debauchery, Aguerre believes, the escape from our decade adrift in the horse latitudes, our loser doldrums. We are, after all, the nation of Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Jeep and Timberland.
“I’m just a serious guy who cracks a lot of jokes,” said Fernando Aguerre, who along with his brother cofounded Reef, where it was OK to be an hour late to work when the surf was up. John R. McCutchen • U-T“Why do you think VF bought Timberland for $2 billion? It’s an American brand! They think there’s way more money in an American brand. They’re going to open a million stores. VF (the largest apparel company in the world) is $10 billion. Nike is $20 billion. And VF realized that it is action brands that are bringing equity and growing. Listen to the CEO’s quarterly report. How are you going to grow Lee and Wrangler? There are no more cowboys. People don’t want to be cowboys. People want to be Kelly Slater and Tony Hawk. PPR owns Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Yet last month they bought Volcom for $600 friggin’ million. There is only one ideology left in the world, and that is consumption, and consumption is led by brands! I’m not saying I like unbridled capitalism because I’ve seen the downside. But if we lose the American dream, there will be nothing left for America to sell!”
Politics concern Aguerre not just because he is a political animal from a country (Argentina) where politics is a life-and-death game, but because a prosperous country is a happy country and happiness sells.
“Look,” Aguerre lifts himself off the couch, “this is the best south swell in 11 years and I can’t surf it!”
Surfing was there before the Aguerres, of course, and surf fashion, too, but the brothers brought a certain Latin DNA to it all.
“I looked at the American surf magazines. We couldn’t afford radio or TV, and I thought what is this, all these guys in the same wet suits, similar bathing suits, shot by the same photographers? Last time I looked, surfers, most of them, liked girls, and there were no girls. … So we submitted a picture of a Reef girl, and the magazine refused to print it. I told the editor, OK, then I want a blank page, with the type: This magazine refuses to print what you can see in — I mentioned their main rival — and in 30 minutes, I get a call back. We had our first good ad.”
At Reef in San Diego, everybody was allowed to come to work an hour late, provided (1) there was at least 4-foot surf and (2) they brought in a wet suit, wet. Business meetings ended up with a party at Fernando’s house.
Some people say Fernando and Santiago still give the best parties in La Jolla. To be sure, the brothers’ annual Liquid Nation Ball (Saturday, $300 a ticket) is not Las Patronas (charity group), ballroom dancing at the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club. This is Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers wailing away on guitar as Fernando auctions off his own clothes to the highest bidder down to some crazy black-striped skivvies that maybe Greg Noll wore back in the day and high-fashion, low-clothing Argentine hat models dance with pro surfers like Rob Machado shaking his locks and Kelly Slater, probably not shaking his, while Che (the original Michael Korda negative) and Gandhi and Obama (body surfing) smile down.
All in the name of boobies.
Aguerre explains: “I was one day floating in the pool after my disc went wrong. I could have been dead. I could have had a heart attack … I could have been a cripple not able to walk. Something like this happens, and you realize how many things you need to do. How you have let some of your intense passions, your hopes, escape from you. ‘Life is what happened when you were busy having other plans!’ ” he quotes John Lennon.
“I am now focused on Liquid Nation, raising as much money as I can for Shaney jo Darden and cancer education for young girls, (Aguerre has 15-year-old triplets of his own) the humanitarian award at the Liquid Nation Ball. She told me they have 8 million ‘I love boobies’ wrist bands now in their Keep A Breast campaign.” He jumps into a laugh.
Aguerre hobbles to the door. “This rich guy comes and wants to buy my house for many millions of dollars,” he says. “I look around. I check out other houses. But where am I going to move? I’m just a poor Latin immigrant!”
“Steve,” he calls after me, “I’m just a serious guy who cracks a lot of jokes. You ever read Castaneda?”
I’m firing up my electric Dog Leg bike. “Yeah, back in the day.”
“Death is the best adviser. When you’re worrying about this and that, Death says, ‘Nothing matters if I touch you!’ Death is always around. Some stupid drunk driver hits you on that electric bike. A pilot takes a bad sleeping pill that didn’t fade out in his system and poof, that’s it for me.”
Surf fashion — it’s a lighthearted business, at the top.
