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Meet The French Surfer & Artist Who Is No Ordinary Beach Bum

Margaux Arramon-Tucoo spends her year dancing on waves and searching for perfect three-foot peelers

Photo: Sarah Lee

You might recognise Margaux Arramon-Tucoo from the front cover of Cooler when she was just 20.

You’ve probably seen her in the beautiful videos she makes with her surf sponsors RVCA, or even cruising around the Finisterre London store where I spent some time with her back in May this year.

The French longboarder and artist lives and breathes creativity, whether it’s dancing on the nose of her board, creating for a new exhibition in London or San Francisco, or drawing her signature mandala patterns on any surface she can get her hands on.

Photo: Julien Binet

Of course, cruising along her native Biarritz coastline is where she finds the most joy. “My happy place is an empty line up with perfect three foot peelers, a log and a couple of friends on dawn patrol.”  Sounds dreamy, non?

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Admitting that surfing was just something that happened, it seems that Margaux’s art was something that was a bit more deliberate.

“I was so young, I didn’t have time to realise or think whether I was going to be a ‘surfer’. As for art, I always wanted to do that and of course having my mother helped me.” Smiling she adds, “The rest was just motivation and belief.”

Sponsored by Californian surf company RVCA, Margaux collaborates with the brand on video shorts that boast her enviable longboarding skills as well as her carefree lifestyle and penchant for drawing.

She first met with RVCA five years ago before she started travelling. Not long afterwards, she joined Raen sunglasses and Stance socks while staying with fellow girl surfer Kassia Meador in California.

“At the time they were so much smaller. I can’t believe it’s been that long and how far they have come,” she says proudly.

Photo: Sarah Lee

Surfing has taken Margaux all over the world – from the jungles of Indonesia and down the Californian coastline.

“I was already travelling with my family and I always wanted more and couldn’t wait each time.” At 18, she went off travelling alone which for her meant “freedom, real life and responsibilities. It was scary but it helped me grow up and become a bit wiser.”

Choosing to longboard over shortboarding was a decision based on both her mental and physical relationship with surfing and the board she rides.

Photo: Thomas Lodin

“It’s my moods,” she replies. “I need to surf to feel good in my mind and feel relaxed. Longboarding is a really good way to express yourself and teach you great style. It is the main path I think.”

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Trying to relax on a wave is her main aim, and “not to do all these little awkward arm moves,” she quips. “I don’t know – I guess what happens on a wave stays on a wave!”

Thanks to her relaxed personality, elegant surfing style and covetable drawing skills, Margaux has made quite the name for herself as part of a crew of impressive female longboarders.

Photo: Nathan Oldfield

We speak about how girls are portrayed in the surfing industry and whether more can be done. “I think it is pretty hard to promote girls in the industry,” she says.

“We always appear as ‘less’ because we are used as models and never really show our surfing and skills.”

However Margaux is definitely part of the solution. She opened up to me a whole new world of incredible female longboarders who shred just as hard (if not harder) than their male peers, always putting on videos of girls like Erin ‘Worm’ Ashley amongst guys like Alex Knost or Jared Mell.

Photo: Julien Binet

“It is getting better. We are working on it,” she smiles confidently. “The new generation will be even better.”

I ask her what’s changed since we spoke to her for our June/July 2012 cover interview. “Nothing has changed but I’ve grown up. I am not ‘little Margaux’ anymore and I feel like I have more responsibilities now.”

Jokingly referring to herself as a ‘beach bum‘ in her formative years, she feels older and wiser. “Keeping it going is my goal for now. As for the rest, we will see.”

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