Rofos

From our founding to today

Rofos is a diving suit manufacturing company founded nearly 30 years ago in 1985, by Roberto Scerbo.

Since his childhood, Roberto has always nurtured his great passion for the sea and underwater sports: he was a skilled spearfisherman, competing in local and national competitions for 20 years straight, including even the top-ranked national championships.

In the early years, he made gloves and wetsuits that were the envy of both his friends and his rivals. He worked as a designer for Ansaldo. During that time, on the advice of a friend who was envious of the beautiful gloves Roberto had made, Roberto founded the first “Rofos Sub”.

At that time Roberto personally drew the precious models that are still a source of pride for Rofos. These models, which are continuously improved, fit so well precisely because they have not only been designed by skilled hands but also because they have been designed and tested by a diver.

Moreover, over time he was able to test different kinds of neoprene and materials and choose from time to time the best and most suitable for each kind of wetsuit.

After 30 years the company has grown and now comes to cover the whole Italian territory and to serve several countries abroad.

He also increased the typology of wetsuits proposed: from the production of wetsuits and accessories to neoprene drysuits; in these past years, he has come to produce, with immense pride, the first technical BC and the RS line of trilaminate drysuits.

The origin of the name

When he turned 18, Roberto Scerbo decided to celebrate by taking a vacation with a few friends to Greece. Grabbing their wetsuits, gear, a tent, and a car, they set off.

They clearly all had the same passion for the sea, spending their days exploring the hidden side of Greece: the submerged side.

During one of these dives, zebra seabream swam in front of Roberto. The fish turned, and with a flick of its tail slipped beneath a large rock. Looking into the opening, once his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Roberto’s jaw dropped.

Seabreams of every type, croakers, and a moray were crowded into what turned out to be an enormous lair that stretched all the way across the huge rock. And then, the seabed on the left of the rock moved: it was a grouper, weighing at least twenty kilos, and it stared Roberto right in the eye.

Back at their camp, talking with some locals, Roberto learned that the grouper that had so stunned him was called Rofòs in Greek. That’s why, when it came time to choose a name for his company, this is what he chose, in honor of the undisputed queen of the coasts of the Mediterranean!

Company philosophy

Although 30 years have passed, and many aspects of how production is organized have changed, the company philosophy and quality of its products have remained the same since the beginning. First in line:

• the quality of the materials we use: both the easily visible (neoprene, trilaminate, Cordura, valves) and the less conspicuous (thread, glue, zips, Velcro, elastic borders, tapes…) have always been chosen based on quality, ensuring an incredibly durable end product with a truly impressive price-quality ratio;
• the attention to detail during production, in order to always guarantee the comfort, the accuracy of the details, and the safety of products;
• the focus in the offered services to always ensure speed, professionalism, and fairness.

Roberto indeed has never stopped taking care of the practical part of the production and tries to convey in each suit the passion that has not yet abandoned him.

The models designed personally by Roberto Scerbo are another of the reasons that made Rofos so popular: designed and field-tested by an expert diver and designed by a skilled hand, they are the necessary basis for making a good wetsuit.

For this reason, a good portion of the models is constantly fine-tuned in the smallest detail, also thanks to the feedback we’ve received.