Natural Fibre Boardshorts: Do They Exist? (Finally, Yes)

If you start looking for a "better" boardshort, you'll quickly notice every brand points to recycled polyester.

The marketing sounds convincing. Plastic bottles become boardshorts, waste gets a second life, making it feel like a step in the right direction.

But despite the story changing, boardshorts are still made from plastic. Still shedding microplastics, and still processed with undisclosed chemicals like PFAS aka forever chemicals.

Plastic is the default

Boardshorts weren't always made from synthetic fibres.

Like most clothing, they originally relied on natural materials. But as polyester and nylon became cheaper to produce, quicker to dry and easier to manufacture at scale, they quickly became the industry's default.

Today, whether you buy a $50 pair or a $200 pair, there's a good chance they're still made primarily from synthetic fibres.

The colours change. The branding changes. The material usually doesn't.

So why hasn't anyone made a natural alternative?

Because it's much harder than it sounds.

Boardshorts need to cope with salt water, sun, sand, movement and repeated wet-dry cycles. Synthetic fibres made that easy. Natural fibres require a completely different approach.

You can't simply swap one fabric for another and expect it to perform the same way. You have to rethink the product from the ground up.

That's one of the reasons almost every "sustainable" boardshort still relies on polyester or nylon, even if it's recycled.

We thought there had to be another way

At MARINE|O, we've spent the last couple of years asking a different question. Could a boardshort be built from 100% natural fibres?

Not mostly natural. Not a natural blend with hidden synthetics. Not "recycled" plastic. A genuinely natural alternative.

It's a far more difficult product to develop, but we believe it's a challenge worth solving.

Why it matters

This isn't about saying synthetic boardshorts don't work. Clearly they do.

It's about offering another option.

For thousands of years, clothing came from nature. Then, in less than a century, plastic quietly became the default. We're simply exploring what happens when you start from a different place.

What's next

We're currently developing a boardshort made entirely from natural fibres.

It's still in development, because we'd rather take longer and build something we're proud of than rush something to market.

If you'd like to be the first to hear when it launches, join the waitlist on our boardshorts page →