UNLOCKED: We Collaborated With The Winner Of “Best Wetsuits 2025”
Introducing the “432” — a Stab x FERAL Wetsuits lovechild.
FERAL is currently offering free shipping to customers in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. Click here to purchase!
From “Balenciaga x Crocs“, to “Supreme x Oreo“, to “Gucci x Xbox” — fashion is more fun with collabs.
Sticking to this assertion, Stab has partnered with the winner of “Best Wetsuits 2025” — FERAL — to craft a limited run of 130 wetsuits exclusively for our Stab Premium audience (at least for the next week, after that they’ll be available to the public if there’s any left).
While this is FERAL’s first “Best Wetsuits” win (they’ve made every single final), this isn’t our first collaboration with Alex and Buzz (FERAL’S founders) — it’s actually our third. We did a short-arm-full collaboration, a hooded winter suit, and now… a “432” — four millimeters of Yamamoto neoprene in the chest and back, three millimeters in the lower legs, and two millimeters in the arms, shoulders, and neck.
We think the “432” is the ultimate cool-to-cold water suit — nearly as warm as any 4/3 you’ve ever worn, but as supple and flexible as the ol’ faithful torn-to-shreds 3/2 hanging in your side yard.
Our admiration for FERAL actually goes way back.
Former Best Wetsuits tester and Stab employee Cori Stephens had this to say about FERAL:
“What more can I say about this suit, other than that it is remarkably warm and extremely comfortable. I typed ‘extremely’ in italics for effect; did it come across? My fantasy nerd might be showing, but the Tolkien-conceived material ‘Mithril’ comes to mind when trying to describe it, for its substantive construction but impossible lightness and silky hand-feel.”
Plus, Stab’s editor-in-chief Mikey C. has since had this to say about FERAL’s rubber:
“Every year that I do this [best wetsuit] test, I look forward to wearing the FERAL suit. And it never disappoints. The rubber is so slick, it feels like a constant — but not gratuitous — application of cocoa butter against your skin. This is a different kind of wetsuit experience. If you haven’t tried Yamamoto rubber before, I urge you to spend the extra hundred dollars at least once in your life. The only problem is you might become a neoprene snob and never go back.”
Now that we’ve sufficiently plugged the product, let’s talk the down-and-dirty tech specs of the suit and then get into where the art direction (designed by Stab’s own Shinya Dalby) came from.
Tech Specs:
– 100% Yamamoto Japanese rubber (99.7% water impermeable)
– 4.0mm chest and back panels; 3.0mm lower legs; 2.0mm arms, shoulders, and neck
– Ultra smooth, low-water-absorption jersey (it’s the Trojan BareSkin condom of surfing)
– Reduced panel, strategic seam design
– Chest zip entry with concealed shoulder drawstring
– External thigh key pocket
– Good for 43.2 degree F water and up*
*(temperature range dependent on your resonance with the ocean mother, most folks will prefer it in 54 degree F water and up.)
Art Talk:
“I just love FERAL suits, they’re so soft. I think this ‘432’ idea is the most practical cold water wetsuit ever, so I was happy to work on the art for it,” Stab’s art director Shinya Dalby said. “I just went online and typed in ‘432’ to explore how that number had been used in the past. It turns out 432 hertz is the exact frequency that a lot of monotonal meditation music runs in. Like, you know — sound baths and chanting and all that.”
Shin then explained how he stretched 432 hertz into surfing.
“It’s obviously very exaggerated, but I wanted to play on the idea of ‘transcending’ and an out-of-body experience. So if you look, that’s where the art comes from. That exaggerated play on surfing as transcendence.”
Shin then touched on the thinking behind the orange accents.
“Black suits look the best in my opinion, so I didn’t want to have too much going on in the way of color,” he explained. “I floated the art in the back of the suit in this nice orange coloring and then added the orange neck lining to match, leaving the front of the suit black and sleek looking.”
We only made 130 of these suits with FERAL, so we hope the select few of you who get into one enjoy the suit as much as we do.
P.S. If you want the most nerdy science imaginable on why we love these suits so much, read this pdf.
