Kanvas by Katin

Kanvas By Katin, founded in 1959, is located in Surfside, California and is one of the oldest surf shops in California.

Katin history

In the late 1950s, Nancy and Walter Katin were in the business of making canvas boat covers. Yet one day a young Corky Carroll came into the Katin's shop in Surfside, California, complaining of the difficulty in finding a pair of swim shorts durable enough to stand up to the then-new pastime of surfboard riding. Walter used his sewing machine and some of the sturdy boat canvas previously used for boat covers and created the first pair of Kanvas by Katin surf trunks.

The Katins kept making their surf trunks, selling them from the Surfside store and through a network of surf shop dealers all over the Western Hemisphere. From the 1960s to the 1970s, virtually every top surfer wore Katins and appeared in surf magazine ads.

Their loyalty was not just because Nancy and Walter made great surf trunks - the Katins loved the surfers who came into their shop, and the surfers loved them. Walter Katin passed on in 1967, and Nancy continued to run the shop and the business in the same manner as before.