Alliance BJJ Teams Up With Macaco Branco
From the Jiu Jitsu Style archive: back in 2015, one of the most decorated names in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu put its colours on a European gi maker's rack. Macaco Branco — the Scandinavian BJJ brand…
From the Jiu Jitsu Style archive: back in 2015, one of the most decorated names in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu put its colours on a European gi maker's rack. Macaco Branco — the Scandinavian BJJ brand known for working with some of the best competitors in the world — teamed up with Alliance, one of the most prominent associations the sport has ever produced, to bring a line of official Alliance team gear to Europe. More than a decade on, the story is still a neat snapshot of how a team and a brand find each other.
The first products were a white Alliance gi and a pair of IBJJF-legal no-gi shorts, sold through Macaco Branco's European store. For European Alliance students who'd spent years buying team kit shipped from Brazil, a closer source was a small but real upgrade.
"We're very happy to work with the guys from Macaco Branco," Fabio Gurgel said of the collaboration at the time. "The quality of their products is extremely good." Coming from one of the architects of the most successful competition team in Jiu Jitsu history, that wasn't a throwaway endorsement.
Why a team gear deal matters in BJJ
A gi with a team patch on it is more than apparel. In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the academy you train at and the lineage you come from are stitched into your identity, and wearing the colours is how that loyalty shows up on the mat. When an association the size of Alliance — with its long roll of World and Pan champions under Gurgel, Romero "Jacaré" Cavalcanti and Alexandre Paiva — partners with a maker that actually understands cut, fabric and fit, the result is gear students are proud to compete in, not just train in.
The Alliance tie-up wasn't a one-off, either. Macaco Branco had a de la Riva collaboration lined up for the same year, putting another legendary name and an instantly recognisable guard onto a gi.
A decade on
The BJJ apparel world has changed a lot since 2015. Team-and-brand collaborations are now everywhere, athletes are sponsored as much for their reach as their results, and the gear lives on Instagram and Flograppling reels alongside the matches. Today's stars — the Ruotolo brothers, Mikey Musumeci, Gordon Ryan, Ffion Davies — sell as many rashguards as they win medals.
What hasn't changed is the principle underneath this little 2015 announcement: the brands that last are the ones that respect the teams and the athletes they dress, and the teams worth dressing are the ones, like Alliance, that have earned their colours one tournament at a time.
See you on the mats.
Originally published in Jiu Jitsu Style, August 2015. Refreshed for 2026.