Fashion, Art and Cycling Meet in London's City Cycle Style
Some of London’s most fashionable cyclists are featured in a newly launched photography exhibition that aims to promote cycling around the capital.
Fashion designer Sir Paul Smith, Mayor of London Boris Johnson, stylist and fashion label co-owner Hazel Robinson (pictured, below), The Lord Mayor of the City of London Alderman Michael Bear, shoe designer Jonathan Kelsey (pitcured, above), chocolatier and pattissier Paul A. Young, London drag scene icon Jonny Woo, and denim emporium owner Donna Ida Thornton are among the subjects pictured with their bikes for the exhibition, led by photographer Horst A. Friedrichs and the City of London.
“Hopefully this exhibition will encourage people to use bikes more,” says Friedrichs, who captured the portraits. “Nowadays, cycling is like a movement or a new subculture. You see so many different people on different bikes, so it was important to get all types of different character in the exhibition.
Portrait photographs of 40 different and stylish cyclists will be exhibited in City Cycle Style, which will be exhibited in a "24 hour outdoor gallery," next to luxury shopping centre the Royal Exchange.
“Cycling has become trendy and fashionable, which is always very important for Londoners,” says Friedrichs, who will also release a wider collection of cycle portraits from around the UK in a book, Cycle Style, early next year. “The clothes people that people wear on a bike and the bicycles have become fashion items as well,” he explains. “People want retro vintage frames and carbon fibre bikes – Londoners are very style-conscious.”
As well as being exhibited, the portraits are all for sale, with proceeds being donated to a charitable appeal organized by The Lord Mayor’s Appeal 2011, themed around "Bear Necessities – Building Better Lives," which aims to help disadvantaged young people.
City Cycle Style runs from 28 September-29 October.
