For the 37th America’s Cup SLAM has been chosen as the official clothing supplier by Emirates Team New Zealand
In October 2024, Emirates Team New Zealand will defend the America’s Cup against the winners of the Challenger Series, which will be contested by five teams of the highest technical level: Britain’s INEOS Britannia led by multiple Olympic champion Sir Ben Ainslie; Switzerland’s Alinghi Red Bull Racing two-time America’s Cup winner team; the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team with Max Sirena as team director and skipper; the U.S.-based American Magic with Olympic gold medalists Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison; and France’s K-Challenge led by Stephan Kandler.
The new partnership between SLAM and Emirates Team New Zealand, the four-time America’s Cup winning team, marks a phase of close collaboration in the development of materials and design of the final product. Replicas of the garments designed and worn by the America’s Cup Defender team will be made with the same technical specifications and marketed worldwide.
“SLAM has demonstrated a clear and purposeful strategy to become one of the world’s best technical sailing apparel brands. All of us at Emirates Team New Zealand look forward to working alongside them to achieve this goal. We are a team of more than 100 people in a number of key roles, from engineering to building boats to racing, people who must work together to win the America’s Cup. Our philosophy involves all our partners and thus SLAM and its commitment to making quality clothing,” said Grant Dalton, CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand.
Enrico Chieffi, CEO of SLAM said, “It is a real honor to be able to sign this agreement and thus become part of the Emirates Team New Zealand campaign. We will do everything in our power to help defend the America’s Cup. Grant Dalton and I have known each other for many years. There has always been harmony and deep respect between us, on all the occasions we have often been involved in the most important events in world sailing, first as athletes and later as managers.”
SLAM, founded in Genoa in 1979, was acquired in 2021 by VAM Investment Group spa, which invested in an ambitious project with world champion Enrico Chieffi at the helm of the company in the role of managing director. The first goal was to develop innovative solutions for technical apparel dedicated to the sailing world that would guarantee the performance of absolute excellence.
“For more than 40 years, SLAM has played a central role in the sailing world. Now our goal is to consolidate our position among the best technical apparel brands dedicated to sailors. This partnership represents a significant step in that journey. Emirates Team New Zealand’s technical apparel will be the result of a close collaboration in material development and product design,” concluded Enrico Chieffi, world champion in the 470 and Star classes, two-time Olympian and tactician of the Moro di Venezia, an Italian challenger in the 1992 America’s Cup.
Emirates Team New Zealand has already successfully defended the America’s Cup in Auckland in 2021 and previously won the world’s oldest sporting trophy in 1995, 2000, and again in 2017.
In the opening photo, Grant Dalton, CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand, and Enrico Chieffi, CEO of SLAM.
(Slam is Official Apparel Supplier of Emirates Team New Zealand – Barchemagazine.com – January 2023)
