SA’s most decorated big wave charger, Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker, has been chasing a dream since long before he scored his first Zag cover in 1993. His dream involved waves that most of us would deem a nightmare, but to him they were beautiful. Twiggy reached the pinnacle of the sport more than a decade later, and with a number of big wave surfing titles to his name is still gunning for more.

Unfortunately, chasing dreams costs money, and after Twiggy lost his long-time sponsor earlier this year the cold hard facts of not being able to chase the world’s biggest swells became a reality.

However, when you watch Twiggy scratching his way over the ledge on another impossible Dungeons take-off, you’ll soon realise that he doesn’t let much stand in the way of his dreams, and he has made the moves to sponsor himself by launching his own clothing range. It’s called ‘Twig’ clothing, and we chatted to the big wave addict to hear a little bit more about it…

ZAG: Howzit Twiggy, we’ve heard that you’ve been dedicating much of your time away from the lineup into launching a clothing range to add to your TWIG Surfboards business. Why clothing?
TWIGGY: (Laughs) Shit, I was nervous to put my letters on a T-shirt at first as it seems quite arrogant, but slowly as I’ve spoken to friends, family and mentors the idea has taken hold, so I thought why not give it a go.

I’ve been doing my TWIG Surfboards for a few years now and some other core surf product with Future Fins and Hurricane (boardbags, travel bags and leashes) and the next logical step for me was to start doing some apparel. It’s far from a brand, but rather just something that’s happened naturally as I’ve gone along and had some time on my hands.

How’s the range looking? At the end of the day that is the important question. Okes want to wear rad stuff.
I’m knee deep in product as we speak, packing boxes and doing personal deliveries and to me its looking pretty sweet.

Look, it’s strictly surf, designed with the surfer in mind and will hopefully give them something that they won’t find everywhere and can be proud to wear. It’s a bit of an experiment to see if it will survive only on the support of surfers, because I can’t see the general public buying into it (laughs). The Twig range is definitely NOT chain store friendly and will not even be sold inland!

Summer 13 will consist of T-shirts, vests, walkshorts and boardshorts with limited quantities. My Technical Boardshorts are my flagship product, up there with the very best and well priced!

The range is designed and produced for core, surf retailers who I believe are the lifeblood of the surf industry and hence surfing in this country, and they need our support.

Surfers are notoriously loyal to the brands who they feel are core, and who give something back to the surfing family. So the next important question is how you are planning to build this loyalty?
Hopefully I can use my image initially to market a South African company that will directly assist South African surfing. I would like to see the brand stay small, core and proudly South African, but the dream is for TWIG Surfboards to eventually directly sponsor surfers who show promise in large surf in order to develop big wave surfing in South Africa.

We have the best big wave surfers in the world in this country and guys like Chris Bertish have proven that we can win at the highest level. If I can help young surfers like Josh Redman and Frank Solomon get to where they need to be and have equipment available to compete at the highest level that would be humbling.

You’re not only looking to sponsor local chargers, but we’ve heard that a portion of the proceeds will also be going to another good cause.
A percentage of the sales will go to the LIV-village.com orphanage. Please check it out, it’s my family orphanage in Inanda and I endeavour wherever possible to raise funds and awareness for LIV.

Through the TWIG range of products, the opportunity exists for the surf public to partner with LIV in making a life changing difference to those who really need our help. So yes, every time you buy product a percentage of sales will go directly to the orphanage.

We are also busy setting up a manufacturing plant at the village and from next year you will be able to buy TWIG product that is actually produced by previously disadvantaged woman from the community.

So are you your first team rider?
(Laughs) Ja, I guess I am, but it’s a labour of love on a startup like this and I wouldn’t be going over to the USA and Hawaii to compete in the Eddie and other Big Wave World Tour events this summer if it wasn’t for the support of BOS Ice Tea. They are an amazing, proudly South African company doing big things in the drinks industry and their support of myself and Junior surfing in South Africa is awesome.

Good luck Twig, we’re looking forward to checking out some of your gear!
Thanks, and thanks to all the surf stores who have stocked my product and I’m asking the surfers of South Africa to please go out and spend some money in their local surf store this Christmas. If they like my stuff then buy it, but please support local regardless, it will benefit us all in the long run.

************
For a sneak peak of the TWIG Summer 2013 product and a list of stockists go to www.twigsurfboards.com