Danny Hess is All Aboard

We worked with Danny Hess, a local artist and surfboarder, because he designed a weight and height-specific surfboard for Haley Mills, the winner of Title Nine’s “Make A Splash Photo Contest.” Since, we have come to love his work so much - between the personalized nature of the shaping to the look ethos behind his boards. Danny is like an artisanal shaper. Each board is like a work of art that ‘s meant to be ridden. And hard. He uses recyclable and sustainable materials in every single board, including Cork, Amapola and Poplar–which don’t fatigue or break down the way foam can, thus ensuring a longer lifespan of your board.

And this is precisely the reason Danny was the only person we thought of to collaborate with on our raffle this summer. His Kunkle Fish board, cut to produce endless down the line speed, glide and trim, will be designed with Carve fabrics and auctioned off to benefit the Save The Waves foundation here in San Francisco.

Stay tuned for more on the raffle. For more on Danny, check out his Website.

Get a Glimpse Behind the Scenes

There’s a lot about what we do that we love. But one of the great joys of creation is seeing our concepts turn into fully realized executions. Every season, for each line, everything comes together in one room at one time during the photo shoot. It’s in this one place that everyone in the Carve family comes together and makes our ideas a reality.

We,the creative team,dream up the pieces and then seek the help of Kiley Hertel (www.hmngbrd.com), who’s been with us since the beginning, to art direct our visions. He synthesizes what’s come together and ensures that our look is in harmony with the feel of what we’re after. At the shoot, he works with Carlee Bewick, our very own stylist, to get that vision just right on our beloved Kat Carter, our model from Mill Valley, who also happens to be a kick ass surfer and artist. Our indefatigable photographer Erin Kunkel (www.erinkunkel.com), also a surfer extraordinaire, then brings this vision to print, or the screen as the case may be. She always manages to “Carve” pieces on the models in just the right way, in just the right light at just the right moment. The results are stunning.

A few of our favorite pieces this spring are the Monaco skirt, Bali bikini and Phoenix jacket. The skirt and jacket are designed a bit elongated and cropped respectively. Fresh takes on old standards. And, the bikini is just damn sexy.




Tune in below! We hope you enjoy watching the creation in process as much as we enjoy the process of creation.

Inspiration on the Pier 94 Docks

Art is everywhere. It’s in everything. It’s in everyone. It just depends on how you look and where you find your inspiration. We found ours last weekend at the Armory Show in New York City, the modern and contemporary art fair held on Pier 94. This year’s event brought dealers, gallerists and artists from around the world working in every conceivable medium into one huge space. One particular artist that caught our attention was Phoebe Washburn, a 38-year-old New York based artist. On display were sculptures of jars filled with pickles and oranges and a Gatorade bottle surrounded by colorful rocks with a green tube sprouting from its lid. It was also unexpected; it just made us stop and gawk. It seemed so random, yet everything was so clever and it all fit in its rightful place. Almost like a family standing there shoulder to shoulder, and you can tell from their body language that they don’t quite fit together, there have been fights, divorces, ups and down, and yet they still are at home, together, because, well, they’re family. The imperfection was simply perfect.

Other works we loved were Gabriele Basilico’s “Bums” photos – wherein the backsaide of a sitter is left with an imprint from a chair. Clearly this woman has a wicked sense of humor. Peter Liversidge’s “Winter Drawing” was so simple and so complex all at the same time. It totally took us in. Also simple, but oh so languidly dreamy were Callum Innes’s four watercolors on square pieces of paper. The colors reminded us of an Ocean Beach sunset.

The work was all so amazing, from the wacky to the profane to the just plain beautiful, it makes you just love humanity. Doesn’t it? Okay, we’ve just inspired ourselves. Back to creating some new looks for summer!

Carve is Built on Color

It’s back and hopefully here to stay. Carve is literally built upon color and no where was it more evident than at Paris and Milan fashion weeks. Reds, teals, deep greens, blues and marigold yellows! Prada being the most inspirational.

Take a look at what we are loving:

A Girl Named Stevie

There were a lot of sartorial take aways from the 1970's: the Dorothy Hamill spin-bob, the Princess Leia space age Arab-bikini number, the Nike swoosh, bellbottoms-but no one epitomized the effortless glamour of that time better than Stevie Nicks. For the uninitiated, she was one of the five members of Fleetwood Mac, one of the supergroups of the 70s. She was a gypsy queen, a Laurel Canyon bohemian adorned with an "Oh, this old thing?" casualness.

The chic, flowing beach style of Stevie and the California 70s are back in a big way this spring. Old standards like ankle-length dresses and skirts, high-waisted jeans, Baja pullovers, and wedge sandals inspired our spring line. To us, nothing screams sexy like feeling comfortable, and so we designed a maxi dress, a wide brim sun hat, cut off skirts and peasant style tees with this ethos in mind-think California Dreamin' with a modern twist.

Pair our pieces up with big hoop earrings, a wristful of bangly bracelets and oversized sunglasses, and you'll be good from morning 'til night.

The Crop is Back

It seems everywhere I look the crop top is back and we love it. At first I was really scared. This is a style that doesn’t look great on everyone. Thankfully it’s not too short and it’s easily layered on top of a tank. Here are a few styles that work for us and pretty much all can sport.

We're Back!

Sorry about the radio silence these last few months, we have been busy working, photoshooting, skiing, having babies and traveling. Now that the rush of the end of year and holidays have passed, we can get back to normal…so, I’m back.

I have lived in San Francisco for almost 10 years now, and what I love the most about the city is that its constantly changing and growing. I live in the outer Richmond, right at Ocean Beach. If you don’t know it, it’s SF’s best beach. It spans for miles right, abuts the city and the Pacific Ocean.

For years, I have thought that my side of the park far outpaced the sunset side. Lately though, this is not the case. I have been house bound recently (just had a baby and trying to get him used to the world), when the holidays crept upon me, and I had not one gift. The mere thought of going downtown to shop made me sick and who wants to battle the crowds on December 23rd!?

I’d heard talk of a cool little hood that was developing on the “other side” of the park (Outer Sunset for non-residents). So, I walked over to check it out and visited some of the best kept secrets in the city. My first stop was Mollusk Surf Shop, the coolest surf shop in SF ) to get some cool tee’s and hats for all the men in my life when I discovered an amazing little jewelry shop next door called “The Last Straw” (415.566.4692). I literally found jewelry and stocking stuffers for friends, moms and grandmothers. This store is filled with hand made gifts and decorations that would make anyone happy. Then, I grabbed a bite at Outerlands, just about a block away. They make by far the best grilled cheese sandwich in the city. Their supplies are all organic and local, and the vibe is surfer meets hipster. Next, I popped over to Trouble for some strong coffee and a killer chocolate chip cookie. And finally to The General Store for some more shopping. This has to be one of my greatest finds in SF thus far. The owner stocks cool art, modern gifts and vintage clothing.

Talk about a great day. I felt great about supporting the local community and artisans (mostly everything I purchased had been made locally). On top of it, I found some of the most interesting trinkets ever. And the best part? TI was only a 20 min walk from my house.