Stephanie Gilmore Volume 2 Has Landed 

8x World Champion and the greatest female surfer of all time, Stephanie Gilmore is back with her second signature collection.

Channelling 90s surf style, the collection features understated apparel and technical surfwear, mixed with retro details and pops of bold neon colour.  
 
We sat down with Steph to chat about the inspiration behind her new collection.   
 
Rip Curl: Steph, talk us through your design process. How involved were you in designing this collection? 
Steph: I think it's becoming quite obvious how much I love the earlier eras of surfing and surf fashion, particularly the 70's and 80's. I usually reference old surf films and I always love visiting the Rip Curl archival rooms when I'm at the Headquarters in Torquay, and this is where a lot of the inspiration for colour ways and logos comes from. Then, working alongside my Creative Director, Whitney and the Rip Curl Women's designers Amy and Tara, I like to make sure that we are creating apparel that I would be comfortable wearing. Having a versatile collection that is easy to travel with and authentic to me is the main priority.  
 
How was working on Volume 2 different from Volume 1?  
Volume 1 used a lot of large logos and more classic colours, and it performed really well. For Volume 2, we wanted to do less logos and use some brighter colours throughout the collection. The black and pink wetsuits are a nod to the ones Tom Curren wore at J Bay in the 90's. We decided to incorporate those brighter pinks and yellows throughout the whole collection and placed an iconic image of Tom doing a bottom turn at J Bay on the back of a sweater, which is now my new favourite sweater. All of my collections will probably reference vintage surf because I just love the archives so much. 
 
If this collection had a soundtrack, what would be the first song on the playlist? 
Bring on The Night by The Police. 
 
Talk us through the photo shoot day shooting the collection, that looked like a lot of fun!   
It's always great working with Ming Nomchong, she is an excellent photographer and also Dan Scott who I work with a lot, so I find it's important to have a crew you feel comfortable with to breathe some energy into the images. We shot around a nice beach just south of Coolangatta and got it all captured in the warm southern Gold Coast sun. Oh, and then I wore some of the neoprene pieces on a surf trip to the Mentawai’s and we scored some fun waves for that. 
 
Yeah, we saw some amazing footage from that trip. How does it feel to get barrelled in something you designed?  
Yeah, I think it's important to test out the suits in some real waves and I can say they were great to surf in! The black with hot pink highlights is a hit in the lineup! 
 
When selecting what to surf in, what are you looking for in surfwear?  
It depends on what kind of waves I'm surfing, but I always look for something that I can just surf in and not have to think about whether it's falling off or just not sitting right. The most comfortable suits don’t always leave the best tan lines, so I guess you just have to mix it up when you can, but my favourite suit in Indo was definitely the tube suit. 
 
What can people look forward to with Volume 3?  
I'm not totally sure yet, you'll have to wait and see.