Rusty Surfboards

No thrills for the cautious

I wasn’t looking for a Rusty hat that day. I was looking for a spare jerry can and maybe a working fan. Instead, I found this thing. A dusty old cord hat buried in a milk crate full of broken sprinklers and tangled Christmas lights.

Light blue. Embroidered logo. 5-panel velcro strap. Still holding shape like it had something to prove. I gave it the sniff test, don’t judge, and surprisingly, it passed. It was a Rusty Surfboards hat. Not the usual New Era stuff you see hanging next to Bluetooth speakers at City Beach, this was a genuine relic.

Think pre-internet. Probably bought at a surf shop that also sold ding repair kits and had a dog asleep on the counter. Rusty kicked off in WA in the ‘80s. American shaper Rusty Preisendorfer gave the name, but the Aussie division ran with it.

By the ‘90s, Rusty was massive, boards, gear, clothing, hats. Everyone had a mate with a Rusty sticker on the back of their Commodore. And this hat? It’s one of those early pieces that slipped through the cracks. No barcode. No website. Just pure surf culture stitched into corduroy, probably worn to death by some sunburnt bloke who reckoned SPF was a conspiracy.

Massive credit to Rusty today, too. They’ve been reviving some of their classic lines without overdoing it. Clean, vintage-inspired stuff that actually respects where the brand came from. Not many get it right, but Rusty definitely does.

Anyway, we cleaned this one up, it didn't need much love to be honest, and gave it a second life. Just went up for sale on our website..