They’re not gonna be short on style

A recent collaboration between Surfside Sports and Quiksilver will give local surfers a chance to wear a pair of trunks designed with them in mind.

Surfside Sports, which started on the Balboa Peninsula in 1975 and is now located in Costa Mesa, was contacted by Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver about a new partnership: limited edition boardshorts.

Quiksilver vice president of sales Dave Rosenberger contacted seven retailers nationwide for the special opportunity. Surfside Sports was immediately in the running.

“We picked them first,” Rosenberger said. “That was a no-brainer because of our history with them. Surfside is like an extended family of Quik.”

Jack’s Surfboards in Huntington Beach is also participating.

Duke Edukas, co-owner of Surfside Sports, jumped on the chance to work with lifelong friends at Quiksilver.

“Dave approached me and was like, ‘Let’s do this collab,’” Edukas said. “I was honored. It’s a special feeling to feel a part of something you normally aren’t.”

Surfside’s team came up with the designs and then went to the designers at Quiksilver to move the idea from paper to product.

The seven retailers span different regions of the U.S., such as New Jersey, Florida and Virginia, and each boardshort has a distinctive look.

Edukas said the Surfside team was never worried about the designs by the other stores.

“It really didn’t matter [what the others did],” he said. “We already knew what we wanted to do.”

To Quiksilver and the Newport surf scene, Surfside Sports is known as the birthplace of Echo Beach, a phenomenon that Edukas said “put Quiksilver on the map.”

He describes Echo Beach as a trend in the early days of Quiksilver known for its iconic designs that involved stars, checkers, stripes and circles.

Taking cue from Quiksilver’s beginnings, Surfside felt inspired by the birth of the movement and incorporated the look into their black-and-blue design, which features blocks of circles, stripes, stars and checkers on the legs of the shorts.

Not as skimpy as their predecessors, Edukas wanted to bring back the retro length but add a few inches, making the original 16-inch into a 20-inch short.

Newport Beach in particular, Rosenberger said, really started the trend and revolutionized the way surf and design came together.

“In the beginning of surf … surfers were kind of bland,” he said. “Then these young movers and shakers in Newport Beach — surfers that were anti-establishment — started painting their boards and wearing crazy colors.”

Thus, Echo Beach was born.

“Surfside embraced all that,” he said.

The shorts, which will be in stores until late September, have been selling well at the Costa Mesa location.

Besides their design, Surfside also showcases its competition, a component Rosenberger thought was important for the nationwide collaboration to be successful.

“I wanted the shops to put their own twist or design on a ‘Quik’ boardshort and make it their own,” he said. “The idea was that the shops would show the other store’s trunks as well, so you go to Surfside and you [will] see trunks from Virginia Beach, Florida [and] New Jersey.”

To Edukas, the shorts are a special purchase for locals, who played muse for the special project.

“We had Newport Beach and Costa Mesa in mind, absolutely,” he said. “These shorts reek of Newport Beach.”