The Founder‘s Story - From Switzerland, to Taiwan, to Hawaii!

SurfAce was born and founded in 2014 in Southern Taiwan and grew into a brand that is just as international as its founder, Eileen Carls. 

Eileen is an adventurous person, always traveling, searching and learning about the world. She's curious about cultures, languages, the environment, surfing, exercising and health, and her philosophy of life is to live in harmony with nature and all living beings. She's originally Swiss with Taiwanese-German heritage. Born and raised in Zurich, she left Switzerland after high school and lived her young adult life in Taiwan. After 12 years of adventures and life changing experiences later, she decided to move to Oahu, Hawaii in 2021 to be with her local partner and live a life even closer to the ocean. 

Eileen grew up as a scouts kid, hiking and making fires, camping in the mountains of Switzerland. She was a landlocked girl, but loved the element of water. So when she finally moved to Taiwan, her mothers home, she encountered surfing for the first time in her life. She was only 17 and decided to work hard, study hard, and explore her asian roots. Gradually she immersed herself in her new found hobby of surfing, and what started as an occasional weekend surf, ultimately turned into a ritual and lifestyle.

Surfing in Taiwan

In Taiwan the surf culture is young compare to other places in the world. When Eileen started surfing in Kaohsiung, there was a small local surf club with only a few uncles that where sharing their knowledge and stoke with the youngsters. It was awesome! But as a female surfer it was intimidating, because there were only a handful of women. 

Generally it was hard to find boards, suits, leashes etc. and everybody was just figuring out how to surf by themselves. All the english information about surfing always needed more time until it arrived in Taiwan. It still is that way even up to this day. When you go to surf in Taiwan now, it's like the "good old times" in other places. Surfing is still something new and hip.

So while it was exciting for Eileen to be part of this new surf culture, it also came with a set of challenges. And one of them was to figure out what to wear! There was no such thing as a bikini or swimsuit to surf in. So at some point her entrepreneur spirit was ignited and she made it her mission to solve the clothing problem. She went onto studying business in university and learned how to sew bikinis on the side!

Designing and Selling Bikinis

Initially in 2014 her handmade bikinis where sold out of her home-studio. Two years later she graduated from university, moved to an office building and started manufacturing in a small local factory. The business grew fast and soon there were too many customers walking into that office as well, so in 2018 she started collaborating with other retailers in Taiwan and opened a brick and mortar shop herself. It was an intense and fun chapter! But once the pandemic hit, she decided to close the shop, transfer all of the business online and move to Hawaii! 

Now all of our products are available exclusively online and sold in a few chosen retail shops in Taiwan. We are open to collaborate with more retailers around the world, so if you share our passion of surf and think we'd be a fit, hit us up!

Why "SurfAce"?

The word SurfAce originally comes from "surface", as in "surface of the ocean". It's where the surf happens, the waves crash, and where we feel the most joy and excitement.

"I decided to write the "A" in SurfAce in capital letter for a reason. 

It divides the word into two parts: Surf and Ace. 

"Surf" is self-explaining, it's what I love the most! 

"Ace" means that I want women to go out into the line-up and feel able to "ace it"! 

I want to empower other women. Surfing is already a challenging sport in itself, and the last thing I want anyone to worry about is the suit getting washed off and being exposed in public. Trust me, I've been there, naked in the waves, looking for my top or bottom, and it wasn't fun. That's the whole reason why I came up with the idea of making bikinis! 

I literally had lost my bikini too many times. And where I was living (Taiwan), I couldn't find any suit that was "surfable" and cute, so I decided to make one myself!

Now we make leisure and active bikinis. The active bikini designs are surf and dive proof, they're solid and designed to stay in place. Wear it, paddle out, forget about the suit and focus on the surf! Go ace it!"

- Eileen

Ethical Manufacturing & Conscious Consumption

All the way up to 2016 our bikinis were handmade in our home studio in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. ​In 2017 we started working with a small, local family owned factory. To this day, we are still manufacturing exclusively in their factory because we are close to the family and cherish their values and business ethics.

We always insist on using local, high quality material, and recycled textiles to decrease our ecological footprint, make the best quality possible and encourage everyone to consume "consciously".

Read more about our brand values

Sustainable Fabric

Ethical Production

Naked Packaging