Feel the need… for tweed

Guy Hills is a man with a mission: to bring smart tailoring with a performance edge to the busy urban commuter using, "the original sporting material", tweed.

His company, Dashing Tweeds has produced a Sporting Tweeds range of clothing, including a cycling suit and cape using their own Lumatwill fabric. As Guy explains: “The suit is very much for the urban commuter cycling to meetings without having to change. Tweed being the original sporting material is naturally breathable and waterproof. I have added a teflon finishing as well. The cycle suit is woven with a reflective yarn in the weft check and so very good for night time visibility”.

As well as producing their own sporting range of clothing Dashing Tweeds is also supplying the cloth to tailors so that you can have the ultimate custom made cycling outfit. 

 Demand for tailored performance clothing seems to be growing, we've run a couple of stories in the past few days about US outfit, Outlier and their range of tailored commuting pants. Outlier's solution to the problem of providing smart clothing that you can ride a bike and, let's not beat around the bush, sweat in is high tech fabrics. Rapha also have a range of smart casual wear aimed at the urban commuter and are currently selling a limited edition Tweed soft-shell, at £450 a pop, made from Schoeller Tweed a wool, nylon polyurethane mix, (Outlier also use Schoeller fabrics for their commuter wear).

These sorts of cycling outfits aren't going to be for everyone (well lots of us couldn't afford them for a start) but they are an interesting sign of how cycling is moving into the urban mainstream and how the makers of luxury goods are trying to incorporate it into what they do. There are certainly a growing number of cyclists that want one set of stylish clothes to work, ride, and play in and if the top end is catering for them today somebody else will be catering for the rest of us soon enough.

Oh, and I want that cape!