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It all started as a little surf shop in 1980 in Newport Beach, California. It wasn't called Pacific Sunwear then. It wasn't even all that different from all the other shops carrying surfboards and wax, except for one thing, the founders had a better idea. You see, during Southern California's wet, cool winters, the beaches get empty and the surf store business goes dry. Where does everyone go? To the mall of course. That was the idea: to be the first surf shop to move into California's popular mall locations. The first mall opening was in 1981 in Santa Monica Place. It was huge. Soon PacSun opened seven more mall stores up and down the coast in places like Torrance, Thousand Oaks and West Los Angeles. By 1987 PacSun had grown to 21 stores. But PacSun wasn't the only good idea born at the beach in the early '80s. All over Orange County, California, locals were creating their own brands of clothing with names like Gotcha, CatchIt and Quiksilver. One day a guy walked into the PacSun store with a carton of super-long board shorts and the kids grabbed them before PacSun could get them out of the box. The brand? Billabong. PacSun and Billabong all grew up together. In '89 PacSun expanded outside of California for the first time. PacSun opened up shops on the East Coast and ran into some snags. Surf brands were mainly shorts and t-shirts and the East Coast was mainly cold. But PacSun caught on quick and so did PacSun vendors. PacSun surf and skate brands moved into long pants and sleeves, and sales began to climb. Pants and T-shirts got bigger and so did PacSun. Skate brands like Gypsys & Thieves and Vision came along in 1990. Fresh Jive brought out baggy jeans and PacSun caught the trend. PacSun introduced private brands like Island Force, Diversion and Shotts to help fill in the line. Stussy hit the beach in '92 and the kids couldn't buy it fast enough. PacSun was at 60 stores when PacSun went public in '93. It's a blur after that. PacSun introduced juniors and shoes, expanded the store size, opened the first PacSun outlet store, opened the first PacSun non-mall store in Greenwich Village, New York, and just kept growing. From one surf shop to over 859 Pacific Sunwear stores and 76 Pacific Sunwear outlet stores in 50 states and Puerto Rico. How does PacSun succeed when thousands of other clothing companies fail? PacSun listens; and PacSun changes. Someone once said to the CEO of PacSun, "You give too much credit to those kids." But everyone at PacSun knows the kids have the answers. PacSun listens to get the trends, the solutions and find out what PacSun is doing right. The rest, of course, is history.
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