Inside Spring Tides, Charlotte Huth’s New Vision for Women’s Surf Culture
For Charlotte Huth, the journey from finance and real estate asset management to founding a women’s surfwear marketplace began with an unexpected adventure. After earning her MBA at INSEAD, Huth spent eight months sailing a 1980s sailboat across the Mediterranean, from Greece to Spain, with no prior sailing experience. The experience taught her to embrace uncertainty, a lesson that would eventually shape her approach to entrepreneurship. Years later, a surf trip to Morocco sparked an idea that would become Spring Tides, a curated digital marketplace dedicated to independent women’s surfwear brands.
As women’s surfing continues to gain visibility, Huth believes the industry serving them has struggled to keep pace. Frustrated by the difficulty of discovering functional, stylish, and sustainably minded surfwear, she set out to create a destination that celebrates the sea of emerging designers while challenging the male-dominated traditions of surf culture. But Spring Tides is about more than what women wear in the water. At its heart is a commitment to making surfing more accessible, inclusive, and welcoming, particularly for those who have yet to catch their first wave.
In conversation with LO’AMMI, Huth reflects on the experiences that inspired Spring Tides, the importance of supporting independent brands, and why creating space for the next generation of women surfers begins with making everyone feel they belong.
Before Spring Tides, you spent years in finance and real estate asset management, earned your MBA at INSEAD, and then did something pretty different: sailed a 1980s sailboat from Greece to Spain for eight months. You’ve said that experience gave you confidence in your ability to do things you had little or no experience in. How much of building Spring Tides has required that same willingness to be a beginner, and to figure things out as you go?
The entire process of building Spring Tides has required the same willingness to be a beginner as sailing did. Before crossing the Mediterranean, I had no prior sailing experience and I had to learn everything as I went. Apart from the difficulty of learning something entirely new, there is a lot of fear in setting out on a new journey without knowing what the path will look like. In building Spring Tides, I feel that same uncertainty, but I know the adventure lies within the process.
Even though I don’t have prior experience in the fashion industry, I feel extremely motivated to continue to grow Spring Tides and see how this journey unfolds. In many ways, I feel as if my fresh perspective is a superpower, because it allows me to view the industry with a new set of eyes. I know there will be many ups and downs and this new venture will pose its own set of hurdles, but just like sailing, I know that the challenges are what define the adventure.
You’ve said that the idea for Spring Tides really crystallized after a surf trip to Morocco, when you saw women wearing incredible wetsuits and coastal pieces but came home and discovered how difficult those brands were to actually find and vet online. At what point did that frustrating shopping experience start looking less like a personal inconvenience and more like a genuine gap in the market?
I first had the idea for Spring Tides in 2023 during a surf trip to Morocco, but I only started working on it in 2026. Over the course of those three years, I continued to scour the internet for new brands and search for quality pieces like those I saw in Morocco. Even though women’s surfing has continued to grow in popularity, there had yet to be a singular space for women’s surfwear, much less one that highlighted sustainable, independent brands. It seems like such an obvious thing - a digital marketplace solely for women’s surfwear. But every online search made it more obvious that something like Spring Tides just didn’t exist, so I had to build it.
I’ve heard from countless women in the surfing world that they’re looking for surfwear that aligns with their personal styles and beliefs. Surfing is more than just a hobby; it’s a lifestyle, and many women are searching for brands that reflect that. Spring Tides serves as an online community for independent brands that deserve to be highlighted and celebrated.
Surfing is having another big cultural moment, and Blue Crush is finding a new generation of fans more than two decades after it helped put women surfers at the center of pop culture. Do you think the image of the female surfer has evolved faster than the industry actually serving her? Where do you still see the biggest disconnect between women’s enthusiasm for surf culture and what the market offers them?
In the 24 years since Blue Crush was released, women’s professional surfing has grown significantly in both popularity and opportunity. But true progress has been relatively recent: the World Surf League didn’t award women and men equal prize money until 2019, and the first women’s WSL Championship Tour event at Pipeline, the wave break featured in Blue Crush, wasn’t held until 2022. Blue Crush actually portrayed the sport as much more inclusive than it was and the rest of the industry, like women’s surfwear, struggled to catch up.
As far as surfwear itself goes, there will always be space for the tomboy pro-surfer archetype within the women’s surf industry, but I think many women crave more inclusive brands that celebrate the full spectrum of femininity in the lineup. Women want pieces that are both extremely functional and stylish. As surfing continues to grow in popularity, so does the range of personalities behind it, and I think women want more variety that allows them to reflect their own personal styles.
Surf culture can sometimes feel intimidating from the outside: the terminology, etiquette, equipment, knowing where to go and even what to wear. Spring Tides is deliberately trying to build something more beginner-friendly and anti-gatekeeping. What do you think the surf world gains when we make it easier for women to say, “I don’t know what I’m doing yet, but I want to be here”?
Just like any other facet of life, I think surfing can gain so much by opening its doors to fresh faces. We believe that being a beginner is worth celebrating, because you’re putting yourself out there and there is so much to gain: knowledge, a new sport, a new community, and a new lifestyle. Everyone was a beginner once, and if the surfing community is willing to embrace that, it will gain unique perspectives, increased diversity, and more opportunities for talent to push the boundaries of what we thought was possible.
I think there are so many women out there who love the idea of surfing, but are intimidated by the exclusionary, anti-“kook” culture. At the end of the day, we shouldn’t let the overall attitude of the industry dictate whether or not we even begin to try it out. As long as you are respectful and prioritize safety for yourself and others, we believe you should get out there and begin. There are communities within surfing, like Spring Tides, that are already rooting for you.
Someone shopping Spring Tides won’t find the same legacy surf brands they can find everywhere else. Instead, you’re putting the spotlight on smaller independent labels that women might otherwise never discover. In an industry that has been dominated by the same major names for decades, what can those independent brands offer women that you felt the established surfwear ecosystem was missing?
Most of the major names in the surfing industry started with male surfwear before eventually introducing a women’s line as an additional stream of revenue once interest in women’s surfing began to increase. Because of that, sizing and functionality for women can feel like an afterthought. There are many newer brands that put women at the heart of what they do, and that leads to more accurate sizing, better quality and more creative designs.
And since many of the newer brands are created by women, there is a sense of connection to the surfwear that is often missing from the bigger labels. Each independent brand has its own story and reason for creating something new within an industry that is so dominated by legacy, household names. When you buy a piece from an independent brand, it feels more personal and authentic. By featuring smaller brands on Spring Tides, we hope that our customers will feel more connected to the pieces they wear in the lineup.
Sustainability is one of the filters through which you select brands, which is particularly meaningful for a business whose entire identity revolves around enjoying the ocean. But “sustainable” has also become an incredibly easy word for brands to use. When you’re deciding whether a label belongs on Spring Tides, how do you distinguish meaningful environmental responsibility from good marketing, and what standards are you unwilling to compromise on?
It can be difficult to distinguish meaningful sustainability initiatives from greenwashing, and it’s never a perfect science. However, it’s easy to tell when a brand puts sustainability at its core versus considering it as an afterthought. We seek out brands that prioritize transparency in their supply chain, are involved in sustainability initiatives in their local communities, and use recycled materials whenever possible.
One of the biggest indicators of a sustainable brand is where they source their materials from. We consciously choose brands that use eco-friendly materials, such as natural rubber and limestone neoprene instead of traditional petroleum-based neoprene. If a brand is not transparent about the materials they use, we will not consider them for Spring Tides. As a company, we strive to continuously improve our practices as we grow, and are members of 1% For The Planet.
Your mother’s career gave you an early example of a woman succeeding in a high-powered environment and helped make you comfortable entering male-dominated spaces yourself. Now you’re building a company specifically around creating more space for women in another traditionally male-dominated world. If Spring Tides succeeds exactly the way you hope it will, what changes; not just about how women shop for surfwear, but about how welcome they feel in surf culture itself?
I hope that Spring Tides encourages women to come as they are and show up authentically in the surfing world. A lot of women in the surf community know the feeling of paddling out into a lineup full of men and how intimidating that can be. If Spring Tides is able to inspire more women to paddle out, then I have succeeded.
Just as my mother paved the way for me in the business world, women in the surfing community can become role models for the next generation. Surfing is a very empowering sport with countless lessons that translate into everyday life. By welcoming women into the lineup, we’re empowering women far beyond the waves.
Comments