A Brief History of Reef Sandals

The Reef story started 25 years ago when two brothers from Argentina Fernando and Santiago Aguerre acted on an idea to produce high quality, comfortable yet stylish sandals. Inspired by their love of the California lifestyle and surfing culture, the brothers moved to California in the early 80’s and found Reef sandals. With a tiny amount of start up capital of $4000 and after lots of hard work Reef is now widely considered to be the number one sandal brand in the world.

Fernando and Santiago had many inspirational marketing idea’s, but in order to separate themselves from the other surf companies in the sandal industry they had to come up with something that really differentiated their sandals. Inspired by the notoriously beautiful women of the beaches in South America, they saw an opportunity to introduce the surf market to an exotic element that they branded as Miss Reef. The first ad featuring Miss Reef was rejected from the surfing magazines for the controversial content, but after some convincing, finally the advertisements ran. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this concept was a massive hit for Reef and it cemented Reef sandals into the minds of sandal consumers across the surfing community and beyond. From that day forward Miss Reef has become a global icon of the surfing community. She has remained an integral component of Reef’s brand image and marketing strategy, and is certainly attributed to the huge success of Reef sandals and the Reef brand.

25 years on the company is leading surf sandal brands in the world making footwear for men, women and kids. Reef has evolved from its beginnings as a humble sandal into a complete and rounded surf brand including a men’s apparel range, followed by the launch of girl’s swim and apparel. Reef recently launched Reef Redemption; a program intended give greater focus on our effect on the Environment. Reef Redemption are products that use green technology, which is synonymous with the surfing communities efforts to work towards a more environmentally friendly environment.