The Almond x Rivian Collaboration
We first met the folks from Rivian years ago... even before they unveiled their first truck at the 2018 LA Auto Show. All we knew is they were working in a design lab in Irvine on a secret "electric adventure truck".
Needless to say, our ears perked up.
Anyone who has the courage to build something that's never been done before—with an incredible emphasis on utility and a level-10 attention to detail—has our attention.
Since then, they unveiled their truck and an SUV, got a lot of press, went public, and have been learning how to build a car factory from scratch.
Through it all their mission statement has remained the same "keep the world adventurous forever".
When you hang around their team or see the spaces they create, they look more like REI than they do Ford. Everything in service of their mission statement.
At first, they asked us if we could build some surfboards to match their trucks, an assignment we were more than happy to take on.
Then, as plans for a flagship store in Laguna Beach started to take form, we started chatting with them about what other products we could do together. Naturally, the conversation turned to the R-Series line pretty quickly.
Like their electric adventure truck, the R-Series is our "had never been done before and built with a ton of utility in mind" project. So their design team created this awesome wave pattern—unique for their Laguna Beach store—and we built a range of R-Series boards to help equip the utility-first adventure seekers with a quiver of surfboards for when the adventure ends up at the beach.
Rivian's new space in downtown Laguna opens today (12/9/23) in the old Laguna Beach movie theater. We were able to attend the opening reception last night, and the space is incredible. They preserved so much of the original charm of the building while breathing new life into a space that has sat dormant since 2015.
You can find an assortment of Almond in their gear shop, including the R-Series collaboration AND some custom fiberglass boards that we built in their Rivian truck colors. **The fiberglass boards are exclusively available at their Laguna Beach store.**
We're very stoked to be working with the Rivian team and excited to unveil this collaboration that has been several years in the making. If you want to see the boards we built together, swing through the new Rivian South Coast Theater in downtown Laguna.
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