Founder Mert Demirci needed a name for his start-up sportswear brand built for extreme and combat sports, from motocross and skydiving to kickboxing, where adrenaline and risk are the point. The brief called for a name that was cool to look at, intriguing to say, and free of the category’s clichés of warriors, animals, and violence. Our exploration ranged from aerospace and physics to Sanskrit and alchemy, producing candidates such as Ergodic, Cross the Rubicon, and Eleven 2-KMS. Mert chose the portmanteau name Machroma, a fusion of “mach,” the measure of supersonic speed, and “chroma,” evoking both vivid colour and the gleam of chrome on dirt bikes.