In the summer of 2018, my wife Armita — a web and graphic designer — wanted to build an online business. I brought the idea: training apparel. It was the one thing I knew from the inside. I was a competitive bodybuilder, a coach, a personal trainer — and almost nothing I bought fit a body that lifts.

We built the website ourselves and tested fabrics for months in our one-bedroom condo in Vancouver — all of it during contest prep. In January 2019, Devoteewear launched. We named it for exactly who it serves: the devoted.

Two months later, the prep ended in a car accident. So did my career as a bodybuilder and coach. A totalled car. A neck and back that never fully healed.

Devoteewear was two months old. We kept building.

That spring we flew to China and spent weeks in factories, chasing samples until we found a partner who builds to our standard. We work with the same partner today.

Orders grew. Shelves went up in the bedroom, then the living room. By July 2021, we moved everything to our Vancouver warehouse.

Since then, we've opened a second warehouse in Brooklyn for our US lifters. Added a women's line engineered for bodies that squat heavy — not men's gear shrunk and recolored. Two storefronts. One standard.

We are still a two-person operation. Armita runs half of everything — your emails land with her. I still train, and I still test every fabric. Men's pieces go on my body first, then to lifters I trust. Women's pieces go to women who lift — squat below parallel, try to rip the seams. If anything shows or gives, it doesn't ship.

If training is your practice, you already know.