mika jin
How It Started
I started playing golf when I was nine. Every night, I’d follow my golf-obsessed dad to the driving range, and it didn’t take long before I fell in love with the sport. That early connection to the game is what I credit for winning the very first tournament I ever played. From there, golf became my world. I spent my childhood competing almost every weekend, constantly chasing improvement and new challenges.
After a successful junior golf career, I earned a full scholarship to play Division 1 golf at UC Berkeley. That moment was huge for me — not just because I got to attend and play for the #1 public university in the world, but because it showed me I could take on things much bigger than I ever imagined. During my junior year, another dream began to take hold: reimagining women’s golf apparel.
There was a clear gap — a lack of clothing that felt high-performance and expressive, athletic yet stylish. I didn’t see the energy or individuality of today’s women golfers represented in what we were wearing.
With a background in art, design, photography, and videography, I decided to create what I couldn’t find.
In my final year at Cal, between classes, tournaments, and even on planes, I was constantly sketching. Those early designs became the beginning of Altaire Golf.
After graduating, I flew to Korea and China to source fabrics in person, walking through the world’s largest textile markets to find materials that felt as good as they performed, but the process was far from easy. There were countless trial-and-error moments with sampling, functional flaws in the designs, materials that didn’t meet my standards, the list could go on. I was overwhelmed by doubt and unsure if I had what it took to make this real.
