CAMIA STORY

I was 16 when I wrote the word CAMIA in a notepad for the first time.

I'd heard a phrase - Champions Are Made In Adversity. Something about it stopped me. I'd always been drawn to hardship. To sport. To any physical pursuit. Especially the ones where you dig in, push through the struggle and come out the other side a better version of yourself.

I started sketching. Playing with the letters. And somewhere in those sketches a stick figure appeared. Pushing the word CAMIA uphill. I knew the story of Sisyphus. The eternal uphill climb. And I thought... that's it. That's exactly it. The uphill climb is where champions are made. It's where we find out who we are. It's from the uphill climb that we derive our value.

Then I closed the notepad, put it in a drawer and went to university.

University was hard for me. I struggled mentally in ways I didn't expect.  The thing that saved me was sport. The physical pursuit. MMA, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, kickboxing. Chasing physical hardship. Digging into the tough moments and coming out the other side. That's where I really understood what CAMIA meant. Not just as a brand. As a way of living. A mindset to adopt and live.

I also had a problem I couldn't solve.

I had over 60 t-shirts in my wardrobe. Gymshark, Nike, Under Armour... every brand you can think of. Yet, I'd open that wardrobe and feel like I had nothing to wear. Nothing fit right. Nothing felt right. The one t-shirt I actually wanted to wear to the gym was a beaten up vintage Levi's tee I found in a charity shop.

That gap between what existed, and what I actually wanted never left me.

It wasn't until after university that I opened that notepad again.

The idea was still there. Still alive. I didn't want to work for someone else. I wanted to build something that meant something more to me. So I quit my bar job, leaned on my dad, a graphic designer, and we spent weeks going back and forth on the logo until it was right. The figure pushing CAMIA uphill. We finally had it.

So we launched in 2025. A few months later I had ACL surgery.

I thought it wouldn't affect me much. I was wrong.

For nine months I gave up. On the vision. On the brand. On myself. My whole self belief just went. I didn't post. Didn't work on it. Didn't believe in it anymore.

But in the back of my mind, quietly, persistently, I knew I couldn't quit. Because I was living inside the very thing CAMIA stands for. I was in the adversity. And the whole point of the brand is that you don't quit in the adversity. You push the boulder. You keep climbing. That's where the better version of you is made. Living on the other side of that adversity. It doesn't matter how slow you go, you keep going. You don't give up.

So nine months after surgery, a year after launching, I picked it back up.

That's why CAMIA exists.

Not just because the activewear market keeps missing the mark. Not just because I couldn't find a single pair of shorts or top I actually wanted to train in. But because I know what it feels like to find meaning in a hard moment. And if someone can look down at the CAMIA logo mid-session, mid-struggle, and get even 1% more out of themselves, then this is worth building.

CAMIA.

Champions Are Made In Adversity.

It's not a slogan. It's the whole thing.