Our story / February 2012 — now
Created by Nelson. Improved by Hillary.
Nelson started Inverted Gear in his mother's basement with 100 gis and an upside-down panda. Then he met a referee who threatened to disqualify a purple belt, and the brand got a design department.
Feb 2012
Founded, New Jersey
100 gis
50 blue, 50 white
90%
Of our products designed by Hillary
01 / Created — Nelson
One business class, then one basement.
He was 24, a purple belt, one business class into college before dropping out 20 credits short of an exercise science degree. Part-time job during the day, teaching BJJ at night, still living at his parents' house — their basement is still referred to as the old warehouse.
The gear scene in 2012 had gone all-in on high-priced limited pre-orders and MMA tough guy. He wanted the opposite: good gis, fair prices, in stock all year, for people who train hard and then go home and play card games. Ten factories contacted, five never replied — 100 gis was too small an order. Life savings: emptied.
First order came through on May 18, 2012. It went to New Zealand. Panda Nation was born.
02 / The panda — Steve Pachon
Drawn in one night, on his dad's old computer.
Steve was a student of Nelson's and his old high-school pole-vaulting teammate. The first logo ideas were literally Nelson going upside down; they didn't translate. So they tried a funny animal instead — a panda, because Nelson had spent a week teaching what he insisted on calling panda guard. Beware of the panda guard. You can't get stuck in the panda guard.
They printed a few shirts for the students before a tournament: an inverted panda with "Nelson Puentes Jiu Jitsu" over it. Everybody wanted that shirt. Strangers at tournaments kept asking to buy one — are you sure, it has my name on it — so Steve redrew the logo and the company got a real name. Bearimbolo Brand came second. Thank God.
The first company expense was a laptop for Steve, so he could keep designing.
"You had put the panda upside down, but we fixed it for you."
— a factory, returning the very first sample
03 / Improved — Hillary
She had him at DQ.
Late 2012, a Grapplers Quest event. Hillary was refereeing and told a very large purple belt to be quiet or she'd disqualify him. Nelson introduced himself after the match and asked where she trained. There is video of the first time he ever saw his wife.
It was the holiday rush and he was drowning in orders out of a basement with friends drafted in to pack them. She had a graphic design and advertising degree and had worked for a major print company in San Diego — she'd already drawn logos for Marcelo Garcia, Lovato Jr. and Leticia Ribeiro. She made a patch. Then a shirt. Then everything.
Nelson's version is shorter: he didn't know how much he needed her until she saw the original design files we'd been sending the factory.
Early 2013
Joined the team
Patch, then shirt, then the creative direction of the whole brand. Nelson and Hillary have worked together on just about everything we've made since — starting with our first real gi design.
2014
Two black belts, one wedding
Married in May. Nelson's black belt in April, Hillary's in November from Fabio Clemente at Alliance NYC. They've trained together the whole way through.
2018 & 2021
Two more pandas
Leo joined the team in 2018, six weeks ahead of schedule, and Lucio followed in 2021. Neither has contributed much to product development yet. Both have strong opinions about the sample bin.
2013 → December 2021
Basement, 3PLs, warehouse, mat
We outgrew the basement in 2013, around the third shipment, when 250 gis turned out to be more than the storage space could take. Years of third-party warehouses followed before we finally got our own in Allentown — and then, in December 2021, the Inverted Gear Academy.
Still a family business. Still not for tough guys.
Hillary designs the products, Nelson runs the logistics, and the panda is still upside down. You can travel somewhere remote and find someone wearing our gi, or scroll past a technique video filmed in Japan with a panda in the background. That never stops being strange.
