Resting Beach Face: How a Seaside Pun Became Our Best Seller
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In the summer of 2023 we printed our very first Resting Beach Face tee. It was one design on one shirt, and we hoped a few people would get the joke. Quite a lot of you did. Three summers later it's our best-selling range by a mile, and it has grown into sweatshirts, notebooks, postcards, pencils, a wall tapestry and more.
So how did three words on a t-shirt end up being the thing people come into the shop asking for by name? We think it comes down to two things: a very old British tradition, and a very modern need to sit down and do nothing for a bit.
A proper British seaside joke
If you grew up going to the seaside in this country, you'll know the humour. Kiss-me-quick hats. Cheeky postcards on spinning racks outside the gift shop. Sticks of rock with rude words running all the way through. Puns painted on the side of beach huts and chip shops.
It's never been sophisticated, and that's the point. British seaside humour is daft, a bit naughty and completely unpretentious. It's the kind of joke you'd laugh at with your nan. Margate knows this better than most places. It's been a seaside town for holidaymakers for well over two hundred years, and that sense of fun is baked into the place.
Resting Beach Face sits right in that tradition. It's a play on a phrase everybody already knows. We just changed two letters.
Why the pun works
A good slogan has to land in about half a second, usually while someone is walking past a shop window or scrolling on their phone. Resting Beach Face does that. You read it, you hear the original phrase in your head, and then you get the twist. There's a little moment of "oh, ha" and that's what makes people stop.
It's also a bit of a reclaim. The original phrase is usually thrown at people (mostly women) as a criticism, as if not smiling all the time is a flaw. Our version turns it into something you'd actually want to have. Your resting beach face isn't grumpy. It's calm. It's the face you pull when you've got nowhere to be.
Updated for now: rest, the sea and a bit of self care
This is where we think the slogan does more than the old kiss-me-quick jokes ever did.
Think about the face you make when you finally sit down on the sand, shoes off, and look at the horizon. Or the face you have after a cold sea swim, when your skin is buzzing and your head has gone quiet. That's a resting beach face. It's relaxed, a little bit smug and completely unbothered.
A lot of us are rubbish at resting. We're busy, we're on our phones, we've always got one more thing to do. The coast is one of the few places that makes you stop. The slogan is a small reminder to go and find that feeling, whether that's a proper beach day, a dip before work or ten minutes on a bench with a cup of tea looking at the sea.
So it's a joke, yes. But it's a joke with a nice idea underneath it, and we think that's why people keep coming back to it.
From one tee to a whole range
That first tee sold well enough that we started asking what else Resting Beach Face could go on. Today the range includes:
- T-shirts, where it all began
- Sweatshirts, our best seller (more on that below)
- Notebooks, for lists, plans and beach day doodles
- Postcards, a nod back to those cheeky seaside postcards that inspired it all
- Pencils, because every good gift shop needs a pencil
- Resting Beach Face Wall Tapestry, for bringing a bit of the beach indoors
- Riso-prints, with that lovely grainy, slightly imperfect riso look
The pencils are a personal one. As a kid, a pencil was the only thing I was ever allowed to buy in a gift shop. So it felt right that there's a Resting Beach Face version for anyone else who's only got a bit of pocket money to spend.
Why the sweatshirt is the one everyone wants
If you've ever spent a day on a British beach, you'll know why. Even in August there's usually a point where the wind picks up and everyone reaches for a layer. The Resting Beach Face sweatshirt works for early morning swims, evening walks along the front, and every month where it's not quite warm enough to go without.
It's also the piece people wear the most. A t-shirt might come out for a few weeks in summer. A good sweatshirt gets worn all year round, and every time it does, someone reads the slogan and smiles. For a lot of customers it's become the thing they buy for themselves first and then come back for as a gift.
If you're not sure which colourway to go for, we wrote a proper honest guide to Sunset vs Oat: which one to choose.
Designed in Margate, by a small business
Resting Beach Face is our own design and our own trademark, created here at Harbour & Tide in Margate. We're a small, woman-owned business, and alongside our own range we stock work from other small, independent brands, lots of them run by women too. When you buy from the range, you're supporting a small shop on the Kent coast, not a big chain.
Find your Resting Beach Face
Whether you're a sea swimmer, a beach walker, a seaside day-tripper or someone who just needs a reminder to sit down now and then, there's a bit of the range for you.
Shop the Resting Beach Face range online or come and see us in the shop in Margate. We'll be the ones with the calm, unbothered expressions.