Lauire Towner - His role and where it takes him
My role at needessentials is pretty diverse. However, one of the main focuses I have is helping to design and develop products. Making a wetsuit better involves such a complex range of decision making and development, to ensure you build something that truely lives up to the vision you have of the best possible wetsuit. Our focus has been on making the most trusted wetsuits available. Something that if you're going to do a lot of serious surfing, it's going offer supreme comfort, warmth and a level of durability that you can depend on in serious conditions.
I was fortunate enough to head over to Morocco for what seemed like an endless run of surf recently. All fathers know the juggle of being a parent and provider. However, the kids school holidays had just finished so it felt a little easier spending a solid length of time away from the family knowing we'd just spent some quality time together. North Africa was the perfect opportunity timing wise to score a few winter waves and test our new wetsuit designs in some cold water and wind. Swells kept popping up and the North Atlantic experienced one of the most constant winters in years, so we kept extending the trip resulting in a six week long run of mind blowing surf. The length of time gave us the opportunity to explore a large section of North African coast deep into the Western Sahara. It’s such a different world, barren, beautiful and remote with amazing flavours of food, music and we met such diverse and friendly people along the way.
Most days we where literally surfing for over 6 hours throughout the entire trip, as a series of storms just kept forming. Ryan [needessentials founder and designer ] and I have been working on a new entry system into wetsuits and also moving natural rubber wetsuits to a new level that we are really proud of for 2026 and this trip just gave me added time in the water to really put the designs to the test. Paddling a variety of conditions from 20ft slabbing left handers to some incredible long point breaks meant this adventure resulted in one of the best and most diverse runs of swell I've ever experienced, something that I will be forever grateful for.
