About Shakti

At Shakti, our mission is to provide you with the highest quality, best fitting, and most flattering activewear that you'll ever own. We believe that regardless of how you choose to sweat, you deserve activewear that not only performs but also makes you feel amazing. Our durable, multi-functional products are designed to support your active lifestyle and ensure you look and feel your best.

Our Passion for Movement

We are passionate about movement and embrace a wide range of activities, from yoga and running to dancing, biking, hiking, and more. Our products are created to enhance your passions and keep up with your active lifestyle. We understand the importance of functional and adaptable activewear, and we combine it with our love for fashion to bring you beautiful designs that meet your performance needs. Quality is at the core of everything we do, and we take pride in creating activewear that lasts. Our commitment to quality extends to our Rio de Janeiro based factory and fabric mills, who share our values and help us bring our vision to life. Together, we design and craft activewear that can withstand the toughest workouts, stretchiest yoga classes, and sweatiest spin sessions.

A Message From Our Founder

I call Rio de Janeiro, Brazil my home. From a young age, I've been fascinated by Eastern philosophy, with yoga and the arts becoming my two greatest passions. With a background in theater and dance, I began teaching Hatha yoga in Brazil in 1999. In 2003, I earned my Bikram Yoga Teacher Certification, followed by further studies with Dharma Mitra in 2005 and Ana Forrest in 2006.

In 1999, I started Gold Rio Swimwear, a colorful exotic bikini company, in the USA. While I sold bikinis to surf shops on the east and west coasts for about four years, my true passion always guided me. In the spring of 2003, I registered for the Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in Los Angeles, where I found myself in need of something to wear in the hot, sweaty room—a cross between a bathing suit and an aerobic fitness outfit. That's when I came up with colorful little side string shorts and tops. From the first day of training, my colleagues complimented my outfits, some even asking if they could buy them. This inspired me to consider creating a yoga clothing line, especially since most people were still wearing long, dark pants in a 100-degree yoga room. Every day, I looked around and thought, "This room would look much better if people were wearing more colorful and comfortable outfits."

In September, during the first Yoga Expo and Bishnu Gosh Yoga Competition, I had the opportunity to set up a booth for Gold Rio swimwear and my new yoga clothing line. I needed a name for the yoga clothes, and my mind went back to 1992 when I participated in a program that taught meditation and yoga in the slums of Rio during the Earth Summit. One of the program leaders, a female monk from India, offered me a personal mantra for meditation and a spiritual name. I accepted and received the name Shakti, representing female energy and power. I loved it and its meaning, and thus Shakti Activewear was born.

While other companies have been inspired to create similar outfits, some even imitating our designs and presenting themselves as a line similar to Shakti, it's truly a compliment. I am proud to say that when you choose Shakti Activewear, you are selecting the original. I promise to continue innovating with new ideas, designs, styles, and fun colors so that you can bend, stretch, sweat, live, and most importantly, grow on your yoga path. We invite you to explore our site. Thank you!

-Ana Bugarim Santos