08/01/2026
Tanner Prairie on Postwar Era Surfboard Design
Let’s paint a mental picture – it’s the mid 50’s and you’re one of the first Southern California surf bums to exist in history. We won the war, the economy is booming, the middle class has never been stronger, you’re on the GI bill, all your friends have grown up and bought track homes with their jobs as accountants, engineers, and salesmen …and you couldn’t care less about that lifestyle. There was a fork in the road, one that led towards materialism and stability and another that led towards harmonizing with First Point, Malibu.
Your family doesn’t know how to describe you, the closest thing they can find is Jack Kerouac and the beatniks, your Keds barely resemble a shoe but being barefoot all day is a great solution, your Levis are lived and worked in, your white tee shirt is constantly being washed in the shorebreak and bleached by the sun, and, when you need to visit the non-surfing ranks of society, you throw on your Pendleton shirt to get fancy. You embody the postwar political rhetoric emphasizing cutting down the cost of living.
Work? Just enough to buy food and put enough gas in the Ford wagon to get you to Malibu, no board racks, just a towel, some rope, and a masters degree in the art of knot tying. Oh ya, and you have the body of a god: tall, dark, handsome, you helped win the war, you’re buff. Your values couldn’t be more opposite of your peers, your biggest investment is your pristine Joe Quigg Malibu Chip and having enough time in your day to relax and heal your mind from the war.
Before Gidget and the Beach Boys, Malibu had strict unwritten rules, respect was earned slowly, and there was a hardcore hierarchy that you earned a rank in. Nothing is valued higher than surf etiquette and style. You surf First Point almost every day and live almost entirely out of your Ford. Your pillars of success aren’t cloaked in capitalism, they’re represented in friendships, your harmony with the winds and tides, your comprehension of fine craftsmanship, and your freedom from obligations.
…this is the lifestyle Tanner is introducing you to through his board designs.
