Hyperfly will now be pausing a recent collaboration with Playboy just a matter of days after it was announced because of the high volume of criticism they faced. As BJJ becomes a more popular sport, there have been a number of high-profile collaborations between BJJ brands and more mainstream organizations. Some of these have been very well-received and some less so, but it’s not often that a brand comes under fire for the people they choose to work with. Most of the time, any criticism is related solely to the designs of the product rather than the actual relationship itself.
Playboy is a brand name that comes with plenty of controversy though, most notably a whole raft of allegations made against the deceased founder and figurehead Hugh Hefner. Even outside of Hefner himself, the very nature of the business that Playboy are involved in has faced criticism too. Choosing to collaborate with Playboy on a new line of gis was certainly a risky choice by Hyperfly and it appears as though it didn’t pay off. There was obviously some positive response initially, even from elite competitors, but it quickly became clear that it wasn’t well-received by many in the sport.
Top Australian competitor Alanis Santiago was one of the first to criticise the motivations behind the collaboration:
”I just don’t get how Playboy is suddenly the face of ‘empowering women who fight.’ A brand built on objectifying women is now being rebranded as feminist? Be serious. This isn’t empowerment, it’s marketing. You don’t get to rewrite history just because it comes with a gi.”
ADCC veteran and IBJJF European Championship gold medalist Samantha Cook also spoke out about it:
”This partnership doesn’t reflect the values many women in our community train for. Empowerment isn’t about image – It’s about respect, safety, and choice. True empowerment doesn’t come from aligning with brands that have historically disempowered women.”
Although these were two of the biggest names to comment on the collaboration between Hyperfly and Playboy, there was plenty of criticism coming from women in Jiu-Jitsu from all around the world. It appears as though Hyperfly have paid attention to the response that they received and just two days after the collaboration was announced, they decided to ‘pause’ it. There’s no news on whether they will ever restart the collaboration and when, but the nature of the criticism they faced isn’t going to change any time soon. The decision to pause the collaboration has also generally been praised, and the message they shared seen as a positive handling of the situation.
Hyperfly announced the news that they were pausing their collaboration with Playboy after listening to criticism from the community in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
