To celebrate the launch of Rapha Custom, we collaborated with artists from around the world, with designs inspired by each artist’s local riding.
05 June 2019Bootlegging is a big theme for TCOD. I've been doing bootleg cycling stuff for the last three years and this project was no different. Instead of the usual fashion brands, I collected visual elements from my South Manchester route. These have been subverted and manipulated to create the branding that embellishes the kit.
The main pattern is inspired by Volcanic basalt, better known as bluestone. It’s used to build foundations, pavements and cobbled laneways throughout Melbourne. When it’s cut and polished, it has a beautiful, intricate quality.
Cycling through the architecture of Berlin, with its constantly changing look, you experience its unpredictable rhythms and have many opportunities to reflect on art, design, and the history of this city and its surrounding areas.
The idea behind the design was to find a way to merge aspects of my paintings with the idea of creating a kit for a fictitious bike team.
An ever-changing climate and defined seasons give this region a constant hit of colour – represented in the palette of marine blues, deep teals, and bright terra cottas printed on the kit, cap, and musette bag.
The inspiration came from the classy women that lived in the Jordaan area in Amsterdam. They wore a lot of colourful clothes with tiger and panther prints, combined with golden teeth.
One of the things that is beautiful about being on a bicycle is that you make contact with the ground as you move, so you are in a sense part of the landscape that you are moving through.
