Xcel wetsuits began life back in 1982, in Ed D’Ascoli’s bedroom of his Sunset Beach house. With world-class athletes surfing on his doorstep, and the challenging nature of Sunset Beach and North Shore breaks, the focus of the brand was for a high-performance product that revolutionizes the industry and pushes the cutting edge of material and design development.
In 1990, the rapid growth of the company meant a move of headquarters to Haleiwa, Hawaii, and a warehouse opened in California. With it’s huge surf success and new West Coast location the company began moving into the dive market, and today Xcel specializes in making wetsuits for surf, dive, UV protection, paddle and wake.
In line with Xcel’s strong innovative product design yet Eco-friendly initiatives, the headquarters are solar powered which is estimated to offset more than 885 tons of carbon dioxide emissions over its lifetime. The company prefer to use naturally occurring materials whenever feasible to achieve a greener final product, they choose to use limestone as a base component for all neoprene and glues, and have developed ThermoBamboo and ThermoCarbon as a neoprene lining.
Xcel has been voted Surf Industry Manufacturer’s Association (SIMA) “Wetsuit of the Year” by its industry peers three times (2007, 2008, 2010).