BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Female-centric clothing brand AnaNichoola is looking for more dealers to stock the fledgling brand as it moves into its third year.
Aimed at female cyclists of all types, the brand launched two years ago hand making female cycle clothing, accessories – including bike lock covers and high heel SPD shoes – and printing t-shirts. The brand then moved on to its first production run of fingerless gloves, which were retailed in around 30 independent stores – largely in London – which subsequently sold out by mid-summer.
That success has led AnaNichoola to launch a five-piece range for winter, with plans for a 12-piece range for next spring/summer. The brand has been taken on by Evans Cycles and is looking for further dealers to stock it.
“The ‘Style Your Ride’ campaign running alongside the winter range is a concept that has come about through both observing and being part of the changes in women’s cycling,” founder Anna Glowinski told BikeBiz. “It is all about women riding with their own style, confidently and loving it, be it in a pair of heels commuting through town or gunning it down the Alpe D’Huez. The styling in the range has come from sports where fashion and function merge together as one all the time, like surfing and snowboarding, and it also follows high street trends.”
Glowinski is a former racer who left the sport and then returned after fitting cycle instruction in during summer months at university. She now rides and sponsors the MuleBar Girls and is bringing out an online fashion, bike and lifestyle mag.
“I don’t feel that there is any other cycling brand that takes this angle for women,” she added. “The freedom and independence that cycling offers is hot. We don’t need to hide behind ugly clothes, or pretend we don’t cycle with some kind of clothing that doesn’t look like cycle clothing, but is cycle clothing.”
