Local gym, big gap, bigger brand — Oak Theory built a custom Shopify store and brand presence for Southpaw Stitches, a Muay Thai apparel brand created to fill a real gap in gear made for all fighters.
Quick answer
Oak Theory is a web design, development, and branding studio. Southpaw Stitches is a Muay Thai apparel brand founded by Jess and Hannah out of the local Muay Thai scene in Queens, built to fill a gap they saw firsthand — quality Muay Thai gear designed specifically for women fighters. The brand has since grown into a lifestyle label worn by Muay Thai and martial arts practitioners across New York and beyond. Oak Theory built Southpaw Stitches' branding and a custom Shopify website.
About
Southpaw Stitches started at a Muay Thai gym in Queens, where founders Jess and Hannah trained. Competition-ready Muay Thai apparel existed, but almost none of it was designed for women fighters specifically. Instead of waiting for someone else to fill that gap, Jess and Hannah started making it themselves — first for their own gym community, then for a growing base of practitioners well beyond it.
Oak Theory's strategy was to mirror that physical dedication in the digital realm: elevating the community-driven ethos of the brand while making sure the online storefront delivered the same premium experience as the gear itself.
The challenge
What we did
Oak Theory was instrumental in crafting our brand to reflect the heart and mission of our brand from scratch. We knew what we wanted innately and how we wanted our customers to feel and engage with our brand, but it was through the brand experience and workshop with Oak Theory that really got us to the final place where we felt our visual brand mirrored our actual vision.
Southpaw Stitches needed a Shopify setup that could sell its full range — sports bras, shorts, tank tops, and lifestyle tees — without feeling like a stock storefront. Oak Theory built out a custom theme and tuned Shopify's available features and functions to fit the brand, rather than forcing the brand into a template's defaults.
Southpaw Stitches wasn't just selling gear — it represented a community of women fighters who'd grown it from a single Queens gym into something bigger. Oak Theory built the brand identity around that reality: encapsulating the quality of the product and the promise behind it — gear made by fighters, for fighters — with the same intentionality the founders put into every piece.
Selected work
The Results
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Custom Shopify store built for the full line
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Product categories supported at launch
FAQ
Launching a lifestyle or apparel brand and need a store that matches your brand's identity? Oak Theory designs branding and ecommerce experiences built to help direct-to-consumer brands grow.
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