MANERA WETSUITS S/S 2025 PREVIEW

Retail Buyers Guide: Wetsuits S/S 2025 Retail Buyers Guide
Brand: Manera
Interviewee: Brand Marketing

There has never been so many participants out there in the water, however the retailers wetsuit hangers still display some 2023 SKUs: How was the 2024 market and order levels?
As a family owned brand working to gain market share in the neoprene world, while also keeping focused on providing innovative product offerings across multiple watersport categories. Due to a challenging retail landscape, many brands and shop strategies have changed in many ways.globally you we see rolled over last year collection SKUs at discount in the retail channel and larger brands D2C shops. Manera focused on supporting the retailers by not changing up the line in certain sessional collections. This ensures the retailers can carry over their left over goods and still be selling inline goods. We see this as an opportunity to allow the consumers to get familiarize with our range of neoprene. We are confident in our quality standards and product offerings, our process is driven by passion and we only bring products that carry a purpose. Despite the challenging market climate Manera continues to stay consistent with our high level of support for both retail partners and customers. Our team is looking forward to releasing communications around new innovations and product offerings in the near term!

The production life cycle of a wetsuit is 2 to 3 years generally. Beyond mere carry overs, how should we extend that life cycle of the product, avoiding aggressive discounts and bettering the environmental impact?
Life cycle of a wetsuit all depends on the quality of the product, the use case and habits of the individual consumer. Our mindset on doing our part to only bring quality products to market that last. Simplistic way for a consumer to be most sustainable is to choose quality products and take care of their gear. There are innovative new materials surfacing and new supply chains scaling larger for natural neoprene. Manera has invested into partnerships with companies like Yulex and circular flow to help drive down the cost of natural materials and allow our customers to participate by building reflow cycle programs for neoprene products. Investing into educating the consumer is also a responsibility all brands should own, the more educated consumer, the smaller the footprint gets as an industry. End of the day, both brands and consumers have the choice. The surfacing natural neoprene supply chains needs to be supported by larger brands to scale, Ideally the industry works together to drive down natural neoprene cost and invest into influence the markets consumers to buy more sustainable and quality products.

The 3/2 full suit is the piece de resistance of the spring-summer range, what are the latest developments within your collection (men, women, youth)
The 3/2 is an essential suit in an active waterman’s quiver, and it’s safe to say that many ocean lovers spend a decent amount of time in a 3/2. Manera has a clean assortment of 3.2 offerings. The two that stand out are the X10D 3.2 full and our new Seafarer+ 3.2 full. The X10D range is our ultimate performance range, scaling from a 5.4.3 down to the 3.2, fully gbs + taped seems, designed with a large surface area of the X10D loop hole fleece, it delivers great warmth while over delivering that 3.2 flexibility people expect. The SEAFARER Range brings us back to the essentials of what makes a good wetsuit, the 3.2 is critically taped with no internal fleece, this delivers an insanely light and flexible suit at an affordable price point! Our product development stays in the works as we build our business and often driven by feedback from our community. The protections category is an exciting one for us. The neoprene accessories category is something Manera wants to lead in waterspouts space. Manera is consistently working to find new innovative products so we can push forward progression in the watersport all we love and share. We listen to our community at all levels and continue to grow our line of comprehensive product offerings. The new Seafarer Grom range has also been a great new range, we wanted to invest into our youth community so we focused on delivering a quality grom with the same materials and construction as our adult ranges. One of the stand out new products recently brought to market is our S-Foam helmet.

Among the various summer silhouettes (springsuit, short/leg fullsuit, long/short john, jacket) which are bestselling (men, women, youth)? And what do you offer in these segments?
For our neoprene collection, the Seafarer Range is where Manera offers a wide spring summer offering for both women’s and men’s. We have seen success and received positive feedback across the whole range. One of the stands outs has been our Women’s 3.2 Hybrid, it’s a wetsuit designed for the women surfers that want a clean looking suit that delivers great functionality. Many of our retailers have been continuing to grow their Spring Summer business and Manera is proud to be helping do so.

Which neoprene options did you use for SS25?Unlike the trend in winter wetsuit, does the backzip entry system still account for big numbers in 2025?
We have used a wide range of our spring summer lines, what products we choose is always depending on what sport we are practicing and the conditions of our playgrounds. The backzip is an important offering in the neoprene category, we see backzips used for a wide range of purposes and many consumers specifically favoring the back zip entry and increase of should area mobility. We have seen BackZip sales very depending on different regions and retailer’s business focus. We have gotten great feedback from both women and men on our seafarer Back Zip offering. Specific trend worth mentioning is that we see many longboard focused surfers prefer a back zip due to comfort and style.

Tell us about your colours and graphics, Do you favor gender-neutral colors/prints or sundry graphics?
Our brand is simply a reflection of our core values, the graphics and colors we use are a reflection of who we are as a brand and community. We focus on consistently delivering an assortment of creativity to both genders while keeping our main focus around quality and functional products. We have been favoring the red Ginger color on many of our new technical accessories and protection products. We have found this color to be a clean neutral color that allows for visibility for safety purposes.

Key Products:

Groms SEAFARER 32 black: