Amelia Eftos has a simple problem with modern surf wear: it stopped being fun. “Surfing is fun, and is meant to be fun,” said the founder and designer of West Australian label NISI Collective. “What you wear expresses your mood and performance a lot.” So, when she looked at a rack of near-identical black wetsuits, she didn’t see a uniform. She saw a gap.
NISI’s choice of block colours, its bold graphic shapes, its confident maximalism – none of it is arbitrary. “I was born in the late 90s, so I grew up in the 2000s maximalist era, which was so colour-heavy,” said Amelia. “My dad in particular introduced me to mid-century pop culture, art, design, surf aesthetics and movies, which has become part of my personality and style – not only for my personal life, but for everything I design.”
Add in her Greek heritage, Nisí means “island” in Greek, and a picture forms: “Greek fashion and design always emphasise colour, to contrast against the deep blue seas and white buildings. Simple, yet strong.”
It’s worth remembering the wetsuit itself wasn’t always so restrained. The spring suit, which sits at the heart of NISI’s range, was invented in 1960s California, when surfers found the era’s stiff, full-length dive suits close to unsurfable. Jack O’Neill’s fix was to cut the arms and legs off, keeping the torso warm while freeing the limbs to paddle. By the 80s and 90s, the springy had become a genuine style statement, loud colours and patterns, the brighter the better, before the industry settled into the muted, technical designs that now dominate. NISI’s palette is less a break from wetsuit tradition than a return to one it had quietly abandoned.
Amelia didn’t set out to build a surf label and never imagined she would one day be running a boutique brand herself. “I was, and still am, a photographer, but I had stopped doing it as a career option.” It was during that creative block that she threw herself fully into surfing and started noticing something. “It hadn’t evolved aesthetically for ages. Women’s surfwear was looking uncool. I genuinely got annoyed and thought ‘is this because it’s such a male-dominated sport that there’s no nice women’s surfwear?’ While seeing so many men’s brands popping up and bringing new designs in. So, I wanted to make my mark.”
That mark started small: a hot pink wetsuit top, hand-made in 2021. “It was a little loose, but it was pretty good. I had lots of feedback from other girls and friends, which then inspired me to go and have a real go at designing products for others.”
Asked whether it was solving a real problem or testing a provocation, she doesn’t pick one: “It was definitely a design provocation I wanted to test in the market, which I also think addressed a specific problem.”
Amelia believes that fashion and functionality are equally important when it comes to designing women’s surfwear.
“Whether we think of style first, functionality can scrap a whole idea, and vice versa. Form always follows function.”
This thought process is invented in Amelia’s design decisions. For example; NISI’s high-waisted shorts are cut to hit the middle of the waist rather than the hip most brands use, for a fit she calls more flattering and more confidence-inspiring. On materials, she holds a line too: limestone neoprene, and nothing less.
It also shows in how she refuses to be boxed in. “We definitely don’t strictly see ourselves as a surf brand. We have now added the title of surfwear and resort wear, because they cross over effortlessly – you can wear surfwear anywhere, for any occasion. We will always be a surfwear brand, but we also cater to what you’re doing when you’re not surfing.”
Amelia believes the shift in attitudes towards fashion in surfing extends beyond Nisi. “Women have been wanting the same thing for a while now: more cool surfwear – but specifically, gear that is secure, functional and tailored to fit female anatomy, rather than generic unisex designs. We want to show off that we can surf and look great doing it, just like we do with every other sport.” She points to surfwear’s growing presence in high fashion – even on runways – as evidence the industry is catching up to what she’s been arguing since that first pink wettie top: surf gear doesn’t have to be boring in order to work.