Sato Hughes, Katin Surf Shop seamstress who popularized custom surf trunks, dies at 96 – Orange County Register

The little seamstress with quick, crafty hands may never have ridden a wave, but Sato Hughes played a pivotal role in surfing history, popularizing California’s first boardshorts in a small room tucked away in the interior of the Katin Surf Shop.

Hughes, who was employed by Katin founders Nancy and Walter Katin in 1961 and worked until age 92 at the Huntington Beach surf shop she inherited, died Sept. 28. She was 96 years old.

The seamstress leaves behind “a legacy of hard work, creativity and community spirit that helped revolutionize the surf industry,” the company said in a social media tribute announcing her death. “His handmade trunks and beautiful spirit will continue to be celebrated by the surf community and his fans.”

Store manager Jesse Watson said customers came into the store to tell stories about their first personalized Katin trunks, armed with flowers that were placed on the sewing table where Hughes worked until his retirement during the pandemic four years ago.

“We’re never going to change this room. That was his room,” said Watson, who noted that plans for a memorial were still under discussion. “There are so many surfers over the years, hundreds of thousands, who have worn their shorts in the water. She was able to dress many surfers and give them a personalized look. That’s what people will miss, other than coming and talking to him.

The Katins were making boat covers and sails in the 1950s, when champion surfer Corky Carroll, who now writes a column for The Orange County Register, walked into the Surfside store and asked for a pair of trunks made from their durable canvas.

In those days, surfers wore their regular shorts in the water, but they often broke quickly. The Katins used a nylon-based thread designed to resist salt water for their sailing materials.

In a 2015 story, Carroll recalled asking Walter to make him a pair of trunks and drawing a design on a piece of wrapping paper. The first iterations were too thick and left surfers with rashes, but when they tried a lighter material, surfers quickly began flocking to the small store as word of the new style of shorts spread.

Although there are a few places making custom surf trunks in Hawaii, Katin became one of the first on the mainland and the first to mass produce board shorts.

Just as business was beginning to increase, beyond what the Katins could handle, they came across a petite, 4-foot-11-inch woman who had just started working at a local dry cleaner.

Hughes, accompanied by her son Glenn, came from Japan as a housekeeper for a military colonel transferred to Los Alamitos. Hughes’ husband had died years before in the army.

She had been a seamstress in her homeland and wanted to use her skills to seek work once her time with the Colonel was over.

“Sato was there from the very beginning, the heart and soul of Kanvas by Katin surf trunks,” Carroll said upon learning of his passing. “I doubt if any single person has sewn a tiny percentage of the number of ones they have over all those years.”

He called her “the unsung heroine of the surfwear industry.”

Business was so good that the Katins stopped making boat materials and focused solely on board shorts.

Walter Katin died in 1967 and Nancy Katin took over the business. The best surfers of that era – PT Townend, Shaun Tomson and the Hawaiians who came to town – all flocked to the store to have their Katin trunks made by Hughes.

The trunks were guaranteed for life: if the shorts tore, Hughes would mend them.

Over the years, Nancy Katin has refused offers from major brands wishing to develop her business.

And when Katin died in 1986, she left the business to Hughes, a legacy the seamstress knew nothing about until her boss, who became a dear friend, left.

She continued to sew trunks over the decades with her son, Glenn, who grew up in the shop and helped her on the business side.

In recent years, the boardshorts industry has been divided; the Katin brand manufactured by an outside company, while Hughes continued to manufacture the shorts in-house for the Kanvis by Katin label until his retirement.

Ricky Blake, a Huntington Beach surfing historian and board member of the International Huntington Beach Surfing Museum, called Hughes “the secret sewing weapon behind the first surfing trunks.”