For all you 1-piece trisuit fiends, I present my custom EN kit!!
All,
I've spoken with some of you before, and read quite a few threads on the topic. Long story short, some of us prefer to race in one-piece trisuits, and being a rather small subset of the EN family, it's never been (nor will it be) part of the EN kit order.
This year I'm 100% short course, and with a few non-wetsuit swims, I figured it was the perfect time to craft a custom kit.
For those that are curious of the process, or perhaps have interest to order a similar suit of their own, I thought I'd detail my experience..
I chose Kiwami, because I've heard their suits are great, their customer service is great, and lots of ITU guys are wearing it.
Andre Bennatan is the US contact, and he is in Illinois. Our interaction got off on the right foot when I emailed him some sizing questions, with no mention of a custom undertaking, and he shipped overnight a few different models of suits in various sizes for me to try on. No charge. Good start.
Once sizing was straightened out, I played around on their customization website (http://www.kiwamilab.com/index-en.php) and came up with a rough draft of what I was looking to do. Wanted to follow ITU printing rules, so basically we were looking at EN logo on chest, name & country on torso, and same but smaller on the rear side. Over the course of a few days of back & forth with Andre & his designer, we were able to decide on a final design, and got the ball rolling on actually making the suit.
I checked in w/ RnP to make sure they were cool with the process & my use of branding, and they seemed pretty excited about it. They put me in touch with their graphics guy, who sent me all the necessary graphics files I needed to send on to Kiwami. The whole EN crew was immensely helpful with everything.
So I sent the files out to Andre, a final draft was sent to me for approval, and within 3 days I had the suit on my doorstep. Total cost was $90 for the suit and $40 for the printing. I got lucky & was able to make use of one of Kiwami's sale suits, as they otherwise can be somewhat pricey, but I can tell you it's a really nice suit. Their Amphibian suits are definitely the nicest fabrics around, and the rest are pretty close. I ended up with a Trinergy suit, and love it.
For anybody that has not looked into this process before, custom printing is never this easy. Most companies want nothing to do with orders under 20-50, and usually have sizeable 'setup' and 'graphics' fees, and then the printing costs are exorbinant. Just look at the website of WinSkins, which is what alot of people use for trisuit printing. Their printing packages range from $150-$400, and that's after you've bought your own suit!!
So anyhow, I'm pumped about my new suit. I think it looks badass. I've already raced in it, and it's super comfortable. So nice to not have to make the decision b/t representing EN & wearing the one-piece suit I prefer. Nice to kill two birds, ya know?
If you have any questions at all, just reply here or shoot me a message if I can help at all. As of last look, Kiwami still has a full run of sizes in the bright red sale Trinergy. So if you want to look like me, get after it! You can of course use my design & just change the name, or go for your own design. Just make sure to discuss with RnP before you go use any logos.
-Ed
Comments