Lonsdale Clothing

I always liked Lonsdale clothing. Okay, so I never owned any - well, I might have owned a t-shirt somewhere along the line - but never anything that I've loved like a member of my family. Not like my old Duffer sweatshirt.


The problem I find with Lonsdale, and their new advertising campaign, is I'm sitting looking at images of models in t-shirts and vests and I'm thinking 'so what'?

For my part if I want to engage a clothing brand I want to know what they stand for. What is it that I'm saying to people by wearing their t-shirts? The Lonsdale brand says too much that I have no real concept of style; that I'm a 'me-too' brand copying someone else. I want individuality in my clothing brands, or at least, if I'm going to buy into a mass-produced brand (say, like Abercrombie) then I bloody well want them to be cool enough to warrant myself and 100 other people on the high-street wearing them.

Lonsdale used to be the urban, boxing wear, typically London, in a very similar way to Everlast was to the same sport in New York. It's ironic that Everlast suffer from a similar problem in trying to reposition themselves as a younger fashion brand, they've lose any essence of what made they what they were in the first place.

It's a hard ask as to wear to go with these brands. Glossy full-page spreads in FHM and clean living models, female ones with big boobs, are probably not the answers - unless Lonsdale are sitting on the brand to eek money out of it by flogging it through Myer and K-Mart to bogans who know no better.

The consequence of this will most likely be decline, or very slow growth. Whilst it can be hard to go back to the original roots of the brand, something that you may not want to do anyway, its worth remembering that these brands were born out of sub-cultures, and that without the support of a sub-culture, they will have no oxygen to survive.

I Am Cyclist

It's been a gap of some 16 years, but I have climbed back on a bike again. Yesterday I went to pick up my new mountain bike and ride it home for the first time - a journey of about 15K.

From one minute being a disdainful driver, owner of the road and producer of carbon, I'm now a pedal-powered greenie, hugging the trees at any opportunity.

Okay, so it's not that drastic but it certainly gives you a new perspective on road-sharing between 4-wheeled and 2-wheeled vehicles. It also gives you a massive appreciation on how hilly the area around you actually is. It also hurts your arse a lot. I feel like I've done a week in the showers in a prison.


Oops. Fuck.

But it did make me wonder as I stood in the mountain bike shop - here I was, a relatively inexperienced person about to spend $600 on a bike I knew nothing about, relying heavily on the sales force of the shop to tell me what is good and what is bad.

I knew nothing of any mountain bike brand names. I had no idea what was good, and what was bad. Would a shop of this quality be stocking bikes that were of 'less quality'? Would they tell me if they did? I had done no research and I was ripe for a plucking. I said...plucking.

So why don't we know anything about the brand names? In a city like Brisbane, where bikes are a valid alternative to petrol-driven travel, few manufacturers spend any time and effort presenting us their brands, or encouraging us to get involved and get out and pedal. We know car brands, we know petrol brands - we even recognise most of the brand names of the sunglasses the cycle shop was selling. But the bike names remain a mystery.

Perhaps there is no money in bikes? Maybe the margins are so small they can't afford to promote themselves? Maybe they spend money actively training and promoting their sales staff, maybe incentivising them for their sales?

I have no answer to this. All I know is I have a nice, bright red something-or-other with two wheels that is going to make my butt and legs scream in pain about twice a week.