Growing up near California’s Laguna Beach, a famous spot popular amongst surfers and counter-culture communities, Shawn Stüssy stumbled into his business when he started out placing his distinctive signature onto his handmade surf boards in the early 1980s.

Over the next few years he began placing the Stüssy logo onto T-shirts, caps and other simple pieces, and a small local brand began to build. In 1984 he partnered up with his friend Frank Sinatra Jr. (no relation to the legendary singer), and the two began selling Stüssy as a proper brand. By the 1990s, the brand had grown to considerable size with a flagship store in New York and business expansions into Europe.