Spotlight on Bicycle Fashion Designers – Michaux

Spotlight: Rachel Bonney

Elegant and stylish cycling accessories.

michauxclub.com

Founded 2011 | Made in Britain

After an unofficial launch in 2011, Rachel Bonney officially launched Michaux, a line of beautiful bags and accessories that embody style and have thoughtful features for improved comfort and safety while riding, in the summer of 2012.

Inspiration for the brand came from the 1895 New York-based Michaux Cycle Club. As one of the ­first organizations in the world to allow women to ride bicycles in public, the original female members of the club were regarded as courageous ­figureheads of a new era of freedom. Freedom not just for women, but also for society as a whole as the joy and energy of cycling encouraged a better way of living.

Bonney aimed to offer the same empowerment through her products by designing them for modern women with an active approach to life and an independent style. “After a fruitless search for a suitable ‘cycling handbag,’ I decided to create my own ideal bag, incorporating the functional features I had encountered during my research, but combining it with a visual aesthetic I liked and which was suitable for my smart job in the fashion industry,” said Bonney.

For Bonney, Michaux is about exploring the duality of what it means to be a modern woman: the balance between being elegant and stylish combined with the practical requirements of a hectic lifestyle and the functional needs of transportation by bike. “The individual products that make up the brand are in constant evolution and are the fuel and inspiration to continue experimenting and learning new things and pushing the brand and myself as an individual forwards,” said Bonney.