GiReviews.Net Presents: Roll Bliss Kimonos EXCLUSIVE Jiu-Jitsu Times Review

Summary

As some may know, I wear a few different hats as a writer.  One of the outlets that I do a lot of work for is www.gireviews.net.  During my searches for different gis to review, I came across one company that was unique among the others: Roll Bliss.  Of the hundreds of companies past and present that I’ve found, Roll Bliss is the only one that gives their customers the option to entirely customize the product.  This is such a significant and unique service, that I felt compelled to write this review as collaboration between Gi Reviews and Jiu Jitsu Times.  Check it out!

Disclosures

This gi was submitted to me free of charge for review.  I have never done any work with or for Roll Bliss.

Introduction

There are companies out there that offer custom gis.  They’ll tailor a gi for you, they’ll let you get whatever you want embroidered in it, they’ll even put nifty rash guard lining in their products.  How about a company that will literally put anything together that you can think of?

Anyone who follows my social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram @emilfischerbjj) knows that I love weird and unique looking gear.  My non-IBJJF competition gi is bright yellow.

Here’s the un-boxing video for this glorious beast of a gi:

I always wanted a gi that would hurt people’s souls.  Something that an opponent or training partner would see that would evoke a certain reaction.  I wanted a hot pink gi.  I wanted this hot pink gi to have neon/lime green accents/contrast stitching and lapel covering.  I wanted the gi to have cookies (after all, my motto is that I have no interest in doing jiu-jitsu; I am merely here to bake cookies), troll faces, and a farting unicorn somehow displayed on it.  I had a pretty wild idea in my mind.

Designing the gi was a back and forth process between me and Saleha Siddiqui, one of the owners of the brand.  She unflinchingly put together a spot on mockup of what I wanted. I saw a picture of the gi I had in my head, and it was completely and utterly glorious.  A few weeks later it showed up at my doorstep.

The gi arrived beautifully packaged in a custom box made of a thick high quality cardboard covered in faux leather. I felt like I was opening up a classic novel as I opened up the packaging.  Included with the gi was one of Roll Bliss’s “Sons of Strangle” shirts, which is an awesome design, and a handwritten note from the owners of Roll Bliss.  Regardless of anything else, this is a company that truly cares about its clients.

So the question is: how does Roll Bliss measure up to other brands in terms of quality?  And how did the customization come out?

Fit

Roll Bliss fully customizes the sizes of their gis. I took my own measurements and measured my favorite fitting gi and sent those measurements to Saleha.  Quite frankly, the fit isn’t perfect.  It’s really darn good, nearly perfect but I’ve had better.  It is possible that there was some degree of human error in my measurements, and if I were to ever get another gi from Roll Bliss I’d make sure to double and triple check those measurements to leave no margin for error.

A:  6.5

B:  27.25

C:  30.25

D:  22.75

E:  20.5

F:  14

G: 8.75

H: 39.5

Design

This gi is sexy.

Saleha and her husband Mo pride themselves on being able to provide literally anything you can think of.  And they did that for me.  And how!

The gi is the pinkest of bright pinks. Simply delightful!  The green contrast stitching, detailing, and twill lapel covering is a deliciously obnoxious lime green.

I also opted to go with a nice subtle yellow piping along the lapel. I didn’t want the gi to be too loud, but I did want a bit of yellow mixed in there.  They did a nice, tasteful job with this.

For my farting unicorn, cookies, and troll faces they went with a partial rash guard lining, going with two swaths, one across the bottom of the skirt and one in the yoke panel.

The gi has some Roll Bliss branding, which I think looks delightful, all in the same lime green.

I’ve got to say, Roll Bliss killed it with this design!  It was exactly as I had imagined perfection in gi form.

Jacket

The gi jacket is, of course, the piece de resistance of the ensemble.

A mid-weight (I believe 450 GSM) pearl weave was used as the gi fabric.  Honestly, I wasn’t crazy about the feel of this specific pearl weave; there wasn’t anything wrong with it, but it didn’t have the substantial feel of a heavier weave or the light soft feel of a lighter one.  It was pretty much the exact same pearl weave that any other gi from Pakistan is made of.  I did not however request any sort of fancy weave; if I had, I may have gotten something better or different.

The jacket also boasted a mid-thickness, EVA foam filled, lime green twill covered lapel, and as mentioned a nice *subtle* yellow piping running alongside it that made the rest of the colors pop nicely.

My favorite part of this gi is the way that Roll Bliss put two strips of Lycra on the inside to give me the “decoration” I wanted.  On the yoke panel is a spiritual image of a unicorn soaring through the clouds and farting a rainbow.

On the lower part, they put a swath of the same Lycra, this time with a smattering of cookies on one side, and troll faces on the other.  It was just delightful.

The external trim of the gi was done in the same neon green twill fabric that I like.

There was one stitching error in the jacket that had no effect on the jacket’s performance.

Trousers

The rip stop trousers, like the top, were made of a beautiful hot pink fabric.

There was a twill swath for the gusset material in the same beautiful lime green color, and of course lime green embroidery and stitching.

The pants presented my only major complaints about the gi:  a major part of the stitching started to come undone after the first wash and the fit of the pants seemed a bit off.  The crotch was considerably longer than usual and the legs were very wide.  Fortunately neither of these had any real effect on the longevity or performance of the pants.

Rolling Performance

This gi was fun to roll in mainly because of people’s reactions to seeing it and catching glimpses of the various details within.  (Nothing quite sets the tone of roll like pulling someone’s gi jacket open and being met with a beautiful batch of fresh baked cookies.)

I would totally wear this gi to competition BUT if I were to do this again, I would probably specify different fabrics and would make 100% certain that the fit was correct.

Not directly correlated with rolling performance but still highly relevant: the gi held up great over the course of the review period.  The fabrics didn’t deteriorate, and the color held up beautifully, which is a tall order considering how bright and vibrant they were when the gi arrived.

Conclusion

There’s a reason I wanted to do this review at Jiu-Jitsu Times rather than at the usual outlet of GiReviews.net which is that this product/service is truly special.  No one else on the market offers this level of customization and I for one think that Roll Bliss does us all a great service by offering these products at reasonable prices.  This specific gi at this level of customization would run $350.00.  For more information check out Roll Bliss at www.rollblissgi.com

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