In 1973, not long after Ian Cochrane joined our production team at our Chelsea store, his mother Beryl suggested we create some clothing to sell alongside our custom surfboards.
Beryl was the Head Seamstress at Falcon Sportswear and our first garment was a zip thru sweater. We hand screened the Trigger Bros Logo as an off set chest print.
Picture Above: L to R John Jolly, Ian Cochrane, Paul Trigger, Phil Trigger, and Phil Newman wearing his original Trigger Bros sweater from the 70’s
Beryl’s expertise and energy quickly saw Trigger Bros go from tees , hoodies, turtleneck skivvies to tracksuit pants well before the 1980s.
In 1982 we started stocking the brand Beach Crew which was a creation of Guy Collins of the Lorne Surf shop fame.Guy Collins created our pigment dyed tracksuit pants in 1984. To this day they are still 100% Australian made in Melbourne and Geelong and dyed in West Footscray.
The “Trigger Trackies” peaked between 2006 to 2007 after we accidentally did a fluro lilac colour that the girls went crazy for. We then followed up with pink, lime and banana. We sold approximately 50,000 pairs in 18 months. Making batches of around 600 pairs at a time we couldn’t keep up with demand. Every pair was presold with staff having to coordinate the recording of names and numbers then contact all the customers when stock arrived. We literally had nothing on the racks for walk-ins.
42 Years later our Original Trackies are still one of the few genuine garments proudly made here in Australia. They are available at Frankston, Pt Leo and Online stores.
