We at DeeperBlue.com were walking around on the DEMA Show 2014 convention floor when a poster for the Ladies First Drysuit caught our eye at the SANTI booth. We stopped in to talk with SANTI‘s Doug Mudry to find out more.
Doug doesn’t hide the fact that he loves women: he thinks they’ve got superior management skills that make them better students and better divers. Doug was pumped to tell us about how SANTI wanted to cater to the women in the sport by offering an equal opportunity at quality gear, so they designed the Ladies First Drysuit from the ground up.
Born literally from the marriage between a clothing and a drysuit manufacturer (the company’s owner is reported to have asked his wife to use her uniform-making skills to develop undergarments for him), SANTI‘s drysuits are all about structural integrity. Made with fewer panels and featuring rubberized seals rather than urethane, they’re chemically sealed with three layers of glue on the fabric and three on the seam tape itself.
The company chooses to chemically seal rather than heat-treating because it adds an additional layer of stretchability to the suit. Rather than just withstanding vertical and lateral stretching, SANTI‘s suits do just as well under diagonal pressure. In fact, the tape used on the seams is made from the same stuff used to make industrial conveyor belts, so if you have any doubts about durability you can check them at the door.
The suits are manufactured in Poland where the owner can keep a close, personal eye on quality control, and they’re leak tested both before they leave the factory, and once again when they arrive at Halcyon in High Springs, Florida for U.S. distribution.
At an MSRP of $3050, the three-year-old Ladies First Drysuit is available in twelve stock sizes with either lime or purple trim. It’s an additional $350 if you want it made-to-measure, but each stock size comes with the option to semi-customize with four additional cuts for free, so if you need the arms a little shorter and the waist a little looser, it’s not going to cost you an extra cent.
If you’re a lady diver in need of a drysuit, look into getting one of your own at http://santidiving.com/product/ladies-first-drysuit.
— Erin Durbin-Sherer
