Marta Bhathal and her daughter Lisa are not household names, but the swimwear lines of their 30-year-old company Raj Manufacturing Inc. surely are: BCBG Max Azria Swim, Guess?, Athena and Barefoot Miss.

The mother-daughter team, who work with husband/father Raj Bhathal, are among Orange County’s top female fashion executives part of a relatively small club that is just now starting to get noticed.

“I’ve had to work harder to get the same kind of promotions and responsibilities as my male cohorts,” said Susan Crank, president and chief executive of Anaheim-based Lunada Bay Corp. “But it prepared me to run a business because the hours were longer, process was more thought-out, and I had to prove myself.

Although it’s been a long time since Crank was asked, “Did your daddy give you the business?” she believes there are still too few women CEOs in the apparel industry. Also, women are still trying harder than men to gain acceptance.

“The power of perspective is important in our industry and the retailers who we do business with,” said Crank, who oversees about 80 employees with sales of more than $40 million annually. “It takes a woman longer because she must prove herself vs. the assumption that the person at the top of a company is presumed to be capable. A male CEO is assumed to have the benefit of the doubt, but a female CEO often has to show her stuff before she is appreciated.”

Still a boy’s club

Crank’s sentiments were echoed by Pat Hawk, chief executive of Hawk Clothing in San Juan Capistrano: “The surf industry and the skate industry appear to be a boy’s club,” she said.

But Orange County’s top surfwear companies, including Quiksilver, Billabong and Hurley International, have stepped up their hiring of women in key design and executive positions, and many women have stepped out on their own to found labels such as Lucy Love, Chicks Rule, Hawk Clothing and Sugar and Spice. These are not all surfwear companies, but some have their roots in the industry.

“A lot of these women broke the glass ceiling,” said Court Overin, trade-show director for Action Sports Retailer in Laguna Beach. “It’s been tough for a lot of women because the industry was a men’s industry, both men’s sportswear and hard goods (surfboards, skateboards and snowboards), so there are those barriers to break down.”

Bob Hurley, president of Hurley International in Costa Mesa, admits there was definitely a “guy factor” in the past, when the perception was that “girls didn’t know what’s up, and what does a girl know about surf or skateboarding?” But, Hurley said, “Guys are more open-minded now, and girls know best what looks good on men and know best about what looks good on women.”

Hurley International’s designer, Lian Murray, was the key men’s designer with Billabong USA when the company’s sales grew from $13 million to $70 million. At Hurley, she is now the second-largest shareholder.

That’s a big step up since college, when she was designing and sewing T-shirt dresses in her dormitory with her roommate. After graduating from school with a degree in psychology, 21-year-old Murray established her own retail store in the Melrose area of Los Angeles. She wanted a job designing clothes for the Australian-based Billabong, but she had to prove herself first.

“I said, ‘Let me prove myself,’ and the line did really well,” said Murray, who freelanced a fall line of fleece and denim clothes to get her foot in the door. “I think it was so much harder being a woman because all my competitors and fellow designers are mostly men and most are good surfers. A lot of people say bad things like, ‘What does she know about board shorts she doesn’t even surf.'”

Success of Roxy line

In the past few years, the expansion of surfwear offerings into women’s and juniors’ lines has revolutionized the industry.

Quiksilver led the way with its Roxy line, headed by Adrienne Ernst (who left Quiksilver to join Bronstein at Wet Seal as senior vice president of design and product development). The success of Roxy helped establish a junior’s market in the surfwear industry and spawned a host of competitors.

“Women’s companies are on fire right now; it’s such a good time to be a part of this,” said Dana Dartez, co-founder of 26 Red Sugar, the women’s division of 26 Red in Irvine. (Dartez sold her stake in the company and moved to Quiksilver, where she is designing for the Roxy division).

Lisa Bhathal, Raj’s executive vice president, goes so far as to say she believes the apparel industry is really now a woman’s world. “I’m lucky because women like my mom and Kathy Bronstein (of Wet Seal Inc.) have paved the way for the next generation,” she said. “We joke that we have a few token men in the business.”