On July 13th 2024, Relocation Vintage hosted a one-day vintage clothing festival at the Annex Hotel. Besides being old friends, there’s a direct link between cycling and clothing that both Relocation and Pedaal wanted to explore. The bike industry in North America is notoriously unfashionable, and to us, that’s a real problem. As Evalyn Parry traces in her theatre performance Spin, the bicycle played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement; and alongside this, the “rational clothing” movement, where women began to wear pants. But, this was long before suburbanization, when the bicycle was a mode of transportation in dense urban cities. Everything kind of changed after that. Especially the fashion. It just got worse.
High Heels and your “Fiets”
As suburbanization pushed bicycles to the side, the bicycle became either (a) some shrug-of-the-shoulders toy that was stored in a two-car garage alongside so many other toys, or (b) an athletic passion-sport that historically has been widely embraced by men. That’s why many bike stores today still feel like boys-clubs. In Holland, there are two types of bicyclists, the wiel-runners and the fietsers. The wiel-runners are the athletic sporty types, and they are a small minority. These are the guys who wear a lot of lycra. The fietsers (“fiets” is a bicycle in Dutch) are just people who ride a bike, and they are the vast majority. These are the wide inclusion of people running errands in skirts, dresses, wide-legged pants, even high heels (which look great on your fiets – haha sorry, we couldn’t resist!).
From Cycling “Mamils” to Cycling Mammals
But, quite the opposite is true here in North America, though this is changing fast. And, if it’s changing it’s because bicycles are once again being used for transportation not just athletic performance. The good thing about bikes for transportation is that they invite everyone back in, and every outfit too! There’s a funny term for North America’s majority wiel-runners and it’s called a Mamil. It means “middle-aged men in lycra.” Well, we’d like to increase the population of cycling mammals (if you will). That means everyone on a bike! And, opening this possibility has everything to do with an expansion beyond spandex. You don’t need to change into a lycra superhero to run an errand in your car, and the same is true for cycling.
Expressing Yourself (Literally).
Cycling and clothing, we are trying to suggest, have a deep and long history that are once again experiencing a revolution. If you’re riding in the Tour De France, sure you need lycra, special shoes, the whole bit. But, if you live downtown and most distances are a short hop it makes about as much sense to change your outfit to ride a bike as it would to drive a car. Cycling doesn’t require special clothes. It only requires special clothes if the bike itself is specialized (in North America there’s actually a bike company called Specialized – that tells you everything!). Visit Denmark and Holland and you’ll see millions of cyclists who have turned the bike lane into their catwalk. That’s the link between cycling and fashion. On a bike, you can literally express yourself; whether that’s just the act of pedalling, or the closer proximity and engagement that life on two wheels offers. One thing is for sure: no one can see what you’re wearing when you’re in your car.
Got a Fashion-Forward Event?
With this ethos in mind we were thrilled to work with Pope and Chris from Relocation Vintage. For the hundreds who showed up on bikes, we offered a quick safety check using our own fashion-forward Bullitt cargo bike (which recently featured with Mac Cosmetics in the Pride Parade). We believe bicycles are the best glue to connect urban life together and it’s no surprise that our bikes dialogue so strongly with discussions around architecture, urban planning and especially, fashion. Finally, this kind of tight community collaboration that connects bikes to everything else – especially fashion – is an opportunity we love. If you’re hosting an event and need a bike to feature, please shoot us an email at info@pedaal.com.
