Lian Murray

Lian Murray

SURF & SWIM

Surf Industry Veteran Lian Elyse Murray, 54

Surf-industry pioneer Lian Murray passed away at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, Calif., Nov. 3 after suffering from a severe asthma attack, according to a statement from her family. She was 54.

Murray was a designer who broadened the horizons of surf fashion. She also was a major player during the heady days of the 1990s surf industry, when the companies that currently dominate the business were expanding their style categories.

During her career, she served as a creative director/vice president of design and merchandising at Hurley International, as the head of merchandising and design at Billabong as well as the head of design at Quiksilver. In 2005, Murray started her own brand, Aqua VI, which is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif.

While at Hurley, she created the “Velcro-less fly” boardshort, which was later patented by Hurley. She also helped develop new divisions of the company, such as Hurley Girlie. Murray said that when she joined Quiksilver in 1989, she was the first designer hired by the company, which until then mostly sold boardshorts and T-shirts. Murray’s LinkedIn profile stated that she started Quiksilver’s Roxy and Quiksilver Saltwater denim divisions.

In a 2003 interview with Transworld, Murray said that she wanted to change the surf industry when she started in it during the late 1980s. “Surfwear was grungy, and surfers didn’t have such a good reputation, but that wasn’t how I saw it. All the surfers I knew were cool guys, people who went to college. They’re all sorts of different people. So I saw a need there that could be fulfilled,” she said.

Quiksilver Chairman Bob McKnight praised Murray’s talent for understanding the market. “We brought her into Quiksilver with no real background in fashion design, no big résumé, not from Orange County,” he said. “But she always had that rare ability to foresee and make exactly what young people wanted and looked good in.”

Murray is survived by her mother, Elyse Lewin; her two daughters, Taylor and Morgan Murray; brother Jim Lewin; and ex-husband Preston Murray.

Flags were flown at half mast at the headquarters of Hurley in Costa Mesa on Nov. 4. A celebration of Murray’s life is scheduled for 11 a.m., Nov. 10, at the L Street Beach in Newport Beach. It was requested that no black be worn for the ceremony.