Behind The Shaper Exhibition

Wow. What a night it was on 24th May in Melbourne at 524 Flinders. We held our very first exhibition with URBNSURF - Behind The Shaper. Tickets were sold out and the venue was at a 400 strong capacity. We had $5 beers from the legends at Noble Boy Beer as well as hangover cure Bae Juice being given out to all attendees to ward off those nasty Saturday morning hangovers. Tunes were pumping thanks to legend DJ Tim Koren, who well and truly got the dance floor heaving.

We would like to thank everyone for coming and supporting these iconic shapers from the Surf Coast of Victoria. Also, a huge thank you to the 12 shapers for letting us tell your story and to display the boards that will be ridden in the URBNSURF lagoon later this year. Those 12 shapers are:

BANJO HARFIELD (@banjo_surfboards)

COREY GRAHAM (@coreygrahamshapes)

CORY RUSSELL (@cory_surfboards)

EIJI SHIOMOTO (@eiji_surf_designs)

JACK DELL-RENNIE (@beigesurfboards)

JOHN ROBERTSON (@strappersurf / @robbox)

LUCA ROSSI (@babelsurfboards)

MARCUS HYETT (@hydro__theory)

MICHAEL VAN DER KLOOSTER (@vandasurf)

ROSS SLAVEN (@slavensurfboards)

SHYAMA BUTTONSHAW (@shyama_designs)

ZAK KONIARAS (@zaksurfboards)

Special mention and a big, big thanks to Rupert Partridge from URBNSURF for all your help and guidance with the series. This would not have been possible without you. To Jimmy Miles of Lipped, The Surfer's Podcast for your time in interviewing all 12 shapers (either via Podcast or at the exhibition). To Ed Sloane for the epic photos and Zac Dorio for the killer videos. To Ginny Hodgkinson our head graphic designer for working tirelessly on the entire series and to our good mate James Montgomerie for putting up all the boards. To the fellas from Mantell for allowing us to use your music for the videos, and also to the team at Ghost Racks for all the board racks. This was a huge team effort by all. We cannot thank you enough.

We did some solid research into finding the the best board racks we could for the night. Ghost Racks came up an industry leader. The way the boards hang vertically, without the racks being visible makes the boards seem like pieces of art on the walls. Ghost Racks can be custom made to fit any board and have different styles, from horizontal and vertical wall mounts to free standing racks. For more info, check out their website here.

Behind The Shaper magazines are still available for purchase here.

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Welcome to Behind The Shaper - a brand new series presented by URBNSURF and Surf Visuals that celebrates the tall tales of the most important people in surfing, the shapers.

The first instalment of Behind The Shaper heroes 12 well-known and underground shapers from Victoria's iconic Surf Coast, a birthplace of surfing culture, industry and craftsmanship regarded around the world.

The concept for the series started in late September 2018, and what started out as a small project quickly ballooned into an 80-page magazine, photography by world-class lensman Ed Sloane, a web and social content series (behindtheshaper.com, @behindtheshaper), a 6 episode podcast mini-series by Lipped, The Surfer's Podcast, and the construction of 12 custom surfboards by each of the shapers to ride some of URBNSURF Melbourne's first waves during Winter 2019 (based on a top-secret wave brief we provided them).

To bring the stories of these 12 legends to life, we're holding a gallery exhibition on Friday, May 24th at 524 Flinders Street, Melbourne. Supported by Noble Boy Beer, the event will feature portraits, interviews and boards by the shapers, live music by local DJ's, and a special Lipped Live episode with the shapers - along with a one-on-one with URBNSURF's Founder.

To learn more about each of the shapers, and to order a copy of the mag, jump on to behindtheshaper.com.

This is just the first instalment of the series - watch this space for #2, dropping later this year.

#behindtheshaper #surfmore

Photos by: Adam Mulkearns