Based in south west France, Ravito is the brainchild of two people, Céline Dayes and Romuald Marie. Graphic and product designers by trade but keen cyclists, they decided to combine their two passions, design and cycling, into creating their own clothing brand.
The first product to bear the newly born company name was a classy musette, that indispensible item for any discerning cyclist. “We wanted to make a simple, good quality, everyday bag,” says Romuald, “simple in the design, good quality of manufacturer and materials.”
The lines that feature across the range are inspired by those found on the wooden boards of the velodrome. “We are used to see the stripes of the world champion in many brands,” says Ravito’s Romuald, “but as we love track cycling (we often go in Bordeaux on the wood velodrome), we wanted to mix all these elements.”
They keep manufacture local, having the musette produced by Noret, a French factory that once used to work alongside fashion designers in the 1980s and one of the last places in the region that can manufacturer cycle clothing.
“We make some limited editions of the musette, choosing fabrics with pattern that we don’t see everywhere and then the idea is really to have limited edition as collector. Sometime, we make 3 or 4 and maximum up to 20 units of each.”
After the success of this first product, they naturally made the step towards producing a full range. There’s now a jersey, bib shorts, cap, bidon and another bag. There are plans for further products as the company heads into 2012.
From the look of the samples that have just arrived for testing here at RCUK however, we think you’re going to be hearing a lot more about them. We just love the look the brand has developed, which combines the nostalgia of a classic jersey with a thoroughly modern graphic element.
Watch out for reviews of the clothing soon.
More at www.ravito.org and www.ravito.fr
