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Jessica Bishop
Patricia Rossi
Rochelle Ballard
Danielle Martin
Malia Alani
Erin Grayson
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Bikini.com:
"Tell us the history of Surfing Magazine's Swimsuit Previews and how
they came to be."
Aaron Chang:
"Quite a long time ago at Surfing magazine, when the Sports Illustrated
Swimsuit Edition started selling millions and millions of copies,
the editors decided to copy that. We did our own version of a swimsuit
edition, which is how I learned to do fashion photography. I did that
for a few years and kind of took it in a direction that created a
lot of controversy, because I started to give the girls a real personality
in the photos. I wanted to empower them with character and show them
as athletes. We got this huge reaction against what I was doing, because
nobody in the industry was ready for that. At that time, it was really
only about showing the swimsuit models posing - and I wasn't into
that. A lot of people, including the editor that I was working with,
disagreed with my direction, initially
Bikini.com: "So,
how did you go about changing the image?"
Aaron Chang: "We seized on the idea of doing the swimsuit preview
with a fresh angle, which was to show girls surfing. And to not pose
them, just let them be normal girls going surfing. And there happened
to be a couple of girls running around the world that were actually
stunningly beautiful girls that could surf well. So we did that and
it kind of created a little buzz that turned into a giant movement.
And all of a sudden, for the first time, young girls had something
to look to and to be inspired by and aspire to. It's created a lot
of excitement and a lot of growth in the industry."
Bikini.com: "How do you account for the popularity of surfer
girl style?"
Aaron Chang: "The reason that I think it was so successful
is that it solved the age-old problem of girls picking swimsuits out
of their butts, when they did anything active. It gave girls a legitimate
attractive way to dress and be functional. And I think that's why
women who don't surf, women who do surf, any active woman is sort
of embracing surf style because it's functional. And it's following
what men's trunks did. The look is highly functional while also being
very stylish, and I think that's a logical element of the success."
Bikini.com: "What is the future for women who surf?"
Aaron Chang: "I
personally see a strong grassroots level of women surfers rising up,
and from that there are going to be some real talents that emerge.
Women's surfing is yet to be very well defined, so it's still open
in many ways." |
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Surfing Magazine's Senior
Photographer Aaron Chang was the first to popularize the concept of a
magazine swimsuit issue devoted to the world's best female surfers in
action. Here's the scoop on the beautiful women who surf…
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