Vancouver company unveils Team Canada’s beach volleyball Olympic uniform design

Fun bright bikini uniforms and accessories. They were created by the Vancouver based company left on Friday for this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris. And we are so happy to have the Co founders of left on Friday with us today. Shannon Savage and Laura Lo Aki. Hello there Shannon. Laura, nice to have you with us. Hi, thanks for having us. Hi there you. OK, So what what is left on Friday, Shannon, take us through your approach. Absolutely. Left on Friday is a premium active swimwear brand out there in the world. We know that there’s a lot of active swimsuits that are like Speedo and Nike and we have high end swimsuits, luxury swimsuits. And we are a brand that does both fashion and function together in one suit in a really premium way. OK, Laura, Well, good cell line, good in a really premium way. I like that. I like that little extra emphasis there, Laura. But I mean, you’re a relative newcomer to the scene founded in 2018. How big a deal is, is this Olympics deal for you? Yeah, I mean, this is a pinnacle moment for, I think, me and Chan personally, as well as the brand. We’ve been in relationship with Team Canada Beach volleyball for three years, and it’s led to the Olympic uniforms. I see. Well, tell me more how, what was your approach with this design? Oh, with the design. So what’s incredible is we’ve been working with the team for three years and so they’ve been wearing our product. So when it came time to design the product, we started out with getting feedback from the designers, from the story athletes. I’m Shan, do you want to talk about it? Oh yes, absolutely. It was really cool approach because they were already familiar with our product. We could really build on product that we already had that they knew and they loved. And so one of the things that they have been one of the U1 of the tops that they are already been playing in was a one shoulder top and they had expressed to us just how comfortable that was in the in the volleyball game. So if you’re a right-handed server or left-handed server to have that shoulder free while you’re playing actually with just enhancing the performance. So we really built on that feedback and worked on a totally custom idea to bring these uniforms to life for this year for the national team, right? Well, it’s interesting because other takes on women’s beach volleyball uniforms have been met with a with a lot of controversy. So did did you keep that in mind with with your design? Absolutely, yeah. I think that the first and foremost we were, we were focusing on on two things like #1 was it was comfort if the if the women aren’t comfortable when they’re playing, how are they going to perform? They need to be able to focus on their game and their performance. So designing something that made them feel comfortable and powerful and supported all at the same time was was #1 and then number two was that we really wanted them to stand out. This is a huge moment, a huge moment to work towards and so these these uniforms have to make them feel like they’re just top of the world top of their game right now. Laura, I know some viewers are are streaming us and they they can see some of the images we’re putting up there of of of the the uniforms. But how would you describe them for, for people who are listening on radio right now, they are the most beautiful high end bathing suit you’ll see, which is going to give them power and comfort and they’re going to achieve the gold medal hopefully. Right. Shannon, do you want to describe them first? I think what? Oh yeah, go for it Shannon. Oh yes, the so the styles, the actual physical design of the styles. It’s this beautiful one shoulder top each. So each of the girls that one girl’s left-handed, one girl’s right-handed. So the the tops are mirrored so that they’re the shoulder of their serving arm is free. And then the style it’s a color black style that has a like a split strap design and then has the like the Canada text across the front. So you’ll get combinations of colors like a bright red and a dark red or white with like this beautiful nude color with red text. And we’re really just focusing on all the all the ways we can bring Reds together. And you know, yeah, it pops, it pops for sure. How much trial and error was there just in in finding that perfect fit, especially when there’s so much movement involved, lots of sampling, lots of wear testing and to be honest, we’re we’re still not done, we’re still, we’re still in it. The uniforms need to be fully ready by by the end of June. And so we’re actually in the final stages of sending these uniforms for further further wear testing, further tweaking and then they’ll be fully ready to go by by the summer season.