Clothing Company Definitions — United States clothing company definitions from Apparel Search
This index lists United States clothing company definitions for companies whose names begin with the letter O. The four companies in this segment are Ocean Pacific (OP), Off Your Back Shirts, Original Penguin and Oxxford Clothes, covering surf related apparel and swimwear, printed shirts, heritage menswear and tailored clothing, and each name links to a full definition describing the company, its products and its history.
Return to the Clothing Companies section in our apparel definitions area or check the fashion company profiles by Apparel Search in our fashion names directory.
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The O segment is a short list with a wide spread. Its best documented company is Ocean Pacific Apparel Corp, known as Ocean Pacific or OP, a private company based in Irvine, California, producing primarily surf related apparel, swimwear, footwear and accessories. The name began in the 1960s as a surfboard brand started by John Smith, who designed the original trademark and label for boards sold out of his shop, North County Ding Repair. The label passed through Fred Ryan to Don Hansen of Hansen Surf Shop, and in 1972 Jim Jenks of San Diego received the name from his employer Don Hansen and created the Ocean Pacific apparel line, wanting clothing that met the demands of surfers in and out of the surf. The line quickly became popular with surf culture, carried by its instantly recognisable OP logo.
The other three names on this index show how much variety a single letter can hold. Off Your Back Shirts is a shirt company, its name built around the shirt itself as its product. Original Penguin is a heritage American menswear name, the kind of long-lived label whose identity rests on a recognisable logo and a mid-century styling heritage carried into modern collections. Oxxford Clothes sits at the formal end of the letter, a tailored clothing name associated with hand-finished suits and the upper level of American menswear making. Between them, the four companies cover beach clothing, printed and casual shirts, everyday menswear and formal tailoring, four price levels and four different ideas of what a shirt or a suit is for.
Ocean Pacific also supplies this letter's sponsorship record. The company sponsors surfing competitions and supports musicians, and it has sponsored more world surfing champions than any other brand, including Tom Curren and Kelly Slater. Sponsorship of that depth is how a surf apparel label keeps its claim to authenticity as it grows: the clothing is worn by the surfers its customers follow, in the competitions they watch. The brand experienced financial trouble through the 1990s, and in the summer of 2008 launched an advertising campaign for its 35 year anniversary, featuring Rumer Willis, Kristin Cavallari, Christina Milian, Pete Wentz, Wilmer Valderrama, Josie Maran and Corbin Bleu, a celebrity line-up aimed well beyond the surf audience at the wider youth market the OP logo had reached.
United States clothing companies are filed alphabetically by company name, one letter per index page, so a company can be found by its first letter even when its full history is unknown. Each definition is a concise record rather than a full company history: founding facts, headquarters, products, brands and lines, ownership where it is notable, and the events that made the company worth defining. A short letter is a good test of the system. O has only four companies in this segment, yet they include a surfboard label that became an apparel line in 1972, a shirt maker, a heritage menswear brand and a tailoring house, and the index puts each of them one click away without asking the reader to know anything except the first letter.
Readers who need more depth on a company can follow the path into the Apparel Search fashion company profiles in the names directory, where major companies carry fuller profiles. Companies change over time: labels are sold, as the Ocean Pacific surfboard label was sold on before it ever became a clothing line, brands pass through financial difficulty and relaunch, and anniversary campaigns restate old names for new generations of customers. A definition therefore records dated facts with their years, from the 1960s surfboard origins and the 1972 apparel launch to the 2008 anniversary campaign, so the record stays useful and checkable even after the company itself has moved on.
The O page also shows why a definitions directory and a company directory do different jobs. A shopper looking for surf apparel needs categories and stores; a reader asking what OP stands for, who Jim Jenks was, or how a surfboard trademark became a clothing brand needs a definition. By keeping one short, factual page per company, filed by letter, the definitions section answers the second kind of question for every company on this index, including the smallest names listed alongside Ocean Pacific.
The O list in this segment covers Ocean Pacific (OP), Off Your Back Shirts, Original Penguin and Oxxford Clothes. Each name links to that company's definition.
Each definition describes the company itself: what it makes or sells, when and where it was founded, the brands and lines it owns, and the notable events in its history, in a short standardised profile format.
Use the United States clothing company definition directory to reach the index page for every letter from A to Z. Fuller company profiles are also available in the Apparel Search fashion company profiles in the names directory.