Us Girls "cultivating women's fashion that goes against the grain" Northshore, Hawaii

SURF TEAM ARCHIVES

Us Girls by Laneski

IN If you were expecting to see teenage girls skipping along in floral bikinis,you have come to the wrong place.Us Girls is a clothing line which seeks to empower women through fashion. Emerging as "the original women's surf line" in the early 90s,the line was recently re-released as an urban apparel range and has been carried in stores such as The Armory San Diego, Workmen's/Balance and The House of Flys in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 2006, the collection has expanded into a full range of graphic tees, innovative club wear and bling bikinis which will be exhibited at the B-Girl Be, an all women's Hip Hop exhibit in Minneapolis from June 29-Aug 17th.

Designer Lane Davey is the epitome of keepin it real.Her designs revolutionized women's surf fashion from the Northshore of Oahu. She innovated the first women's boardshort, in 1993, won the Hawaii state surfing championships in 1994, and started selling Us Girls to local shops shortly thereafter. She was also the first to use real women surfers and a women's surf team in her marketing campaign. Some of the most hardcore and extreme women surfers in the world represented the team wearing the functional surfwear while challenging the line ups at places like Pipeline, Waimea Bay, Sunset Beach and Haleiwa.

By 1998, Lane was working with about 40-50 surf shops and swim botiques across the U.S. mainland and had a distributor in Japan while competing on the women's pro surf tour. With a surboard bag under one arm and a sample bag under the other, she took her designs to nearly every corner of the globe including, Africa, Australia, France and the continental U.S. Her designs have also been published in magazines locally and internationally. By 2001, she had dropped off the tour to put all her focus towards her passion for riding the Pipeline. She became the first woman to surf it consistenly and to paddle out to the second reef.Her prowess in the waves inspired fellow big wave surfing legend Banzai Betty Depolito to put on the very first women's contest at Pipe in 2005.

The name Laneski stems from her roots as an original 80s B-Girl (breakdancer) in Seattle making the authenticity of her new urban apparel range somewhat undeniable. Her involvement in the Hip Hop Community over the last few years is what inspired the new collection. She has supported and attended several underground Hip Hop events such as the B-Boy Reunion in Honolulu and the B-Boy Summit in L.A. She stays involved with Hawaii's Hip Hop Community, teaching breakdance classes at the YMCA. Recently, she joined with 3 other B-Girls to form Hawaii's first all girl Crew.