Words by Alexa Daugherty and Photos by Luke Batten
In grammar school, around the age of 3 or 4 (depending where on the Gregorian Calendar your birthday falls) you learn the primary colors.
Red, Yellow, Blue.
In your youth, these three colors were a gateway to fun. You could scribble on walls, buy coloring books, and describe that bright, burning thing in the sky. Still, you never could (and still can’t) say you “red a book.” Still, these three colors could revolve and reform – producing multifarious purposes of wild imagination.
RYB. YellowBrightensRain. BringYourRed. ouR Bad, whY?
Not too long after this brief interlude with Mom and Mondrian, the three colors of your mind started to blend. Two more drops of red made that green look like magenta and ‘seafoam.’ became something you could draw. Soon, an entire palate was made available – one limited by only your own creativity.
In regards to biking, for girls of that just-beyond-the-primary-colors-but-still-in-primary-school age, that creativity suddenly met an asymptote. Tricycles were pink, Barbie, purple, and glittering. Now, this wouldn’t be anything to frown upon if the quantity of ‘sweet’ colored bike-gear designed for females matched the quantity of ‘savory’ colored bike-gear designed for females. Instead, however, most stints down the Toys ‘R Us aisle rarely turned up a tom-boy bike really meant for us.
We have nothing against purple streamers flying from handlebars, but we also have nothing against the muted femininity of Agnes Martin. Whether pastel or pop-art, there should be choice.
We want women’s clothing to be just as tough and whimsical as the women wearing it. To both acknowledge the beauty of flower-patterned bike seats and champion the unbounded poise found in Red and Yellow and Blue.
So here we present a canvas. Primary-colors primed for you to blend as wished. One stipulation: we want to see some mud splatters.
In the store now
