While haute couture and cycling are certainly not strangers – check out Paul Smith’s recently launched range of road cycling kit – mountain biking is usually the neglected cousin.
But a Scottish knitwear designer who caught the MTB bug three years ago is aiming to change all that.
Alex Feechan has designed for Chanel, Calvin Klein and Barbour, and most recently produced a line of luxury knitwear for golfers.
But after going mountain biking for the first time with a group of friends at the world-acclaimed Glentress Trails centre near her home in the Scottish Borders, she decided the range of clothing available for females was “quite patronising and lacked consideration”.
“When biking myself, I have always been inspired by freestyle riders and how they dress, often just wearing normal clothes but putting them together in a really interesting way. I love the mix of the urban street wear look in the natural environment.”
She set about designing clothing that, as well as “doing what it says on the tin”, would also “have a good cut and be flattering to the female form”.
“I also wanted to create a range that worked both on and off the bike. Whether it’s mountain biking, road or urban commuting, a ride is often followed by a cafe stop or day at work, so I wanted my collection to have pieces in it that females would be happy to go and sit in the cafe wearing, pieces that were fashionable and adaptable but also hard-wearing and practical.
“I try to use only natural fibres, such as merino wool-cotton blends, and we have steered away from the colour black as this was the colour that was prevalent in mountain-biking gear for women. We prefer to use neutral colours such as moss green, navy and charcoal grey.”
