Meraki x APEX
I'll be upfront on this one — I train at Meraki. Jorn Sjaardema, the head coach, is one of the people who told me to start APEX in the first place, back before any of this existed. So when I say this collab matters to me, that's the context. We've worked together on multiple drops since the brand started, and this is the latest one.
This time we made gloves.
Why the gloves matter for this post. Most of our gym collab work is apparel — rashguards, fightshorts, jerseys, tracksuits. But we also do custom fight gear, and Meraki was the right partner to feature it on. The gloves are built on our V2 MMA Sparring Gloves base — the same gloves we sell in the catalogue, with all of the same construction: cowhide leather, mesh leather panels for breathability, the long velcro strap system without metal hooks, sparring-grade cushioning. What changed is everything on top.
The design — built across multiple collabs. The hand logo on the back of the gloves isn't new. We designed that logo with Meraki on a previous collab — it's a hand making the "M" by crossing the middle and ring finger and pointing downwards, taken from the gesture members started doing after winning in competition. It became the gym's main logo. Seeing it now placed on the back of an MMA glove, where the wearer's actual hand is doing the gesture inside the leather, is the kind of detail you can only get to after a few projects together. You don't design that on the first collab. You earn it.
The rest of the design landed around that anchor:
- "MERAKI" wordmark on the thumb pads — the artwork we developed with Jorn during the same earlier project.
- The Meraki definition printed on the inside of the wrist strap. Greek word, roughly: to do something with soul, creativity, or love; to put something of yourself into your work. It's the gym's whole ethos in one word, and putting it where only the wearer sees it is the right place for it.
- Custom red camo lining on the inside of the gloves, in a pattern we designed for the gym in the same earlier collab. Not visible from the outside, just a quiet pop when you put them on or take them off.
The white knuckle panel with the calligraphy "Meraki Gym" script is the only loud move. Everything else is restrained — because Meraki's identity isn't loud, even though the gym is full of people who hit hard.
About Meraki. Meraki is in Aalsmeer, headed up by Jorn Sjaardema and pro MMA heavyweight John Winter. Grappling, kickboxing, and MMA — they do all three, and they're one of the few MMA gyms in the Netherlands with a real wrestling base (taught through the Amsterdam Airlines lineage). The competition team is deep across all three disciplines.
I'm biased because I train there, so take this with whatever grain of salt you want — but the inner core of the gym actually feels like a family. The people who train there push each other in a way that's genuinely hard to find. There's a mentality across the team that the rest of us just call "dawg," and you know it when you're rolling with it.
If you're anywhere near Aalsmeer and you train, go check it out:
The team gloves are available through the gym directly.
Want custom gear for your gym?
Apparel, gloves, full kits — we've made all of it. If you've got an idea for something specific, get in touch and we'll figure out the build. Some of the best collab work happens after the second or third project together — like this one.
#JOINTHEFIGHT
