For a lot of people it is the fact that at the age of 11 I was bought this racing bike
by my Dad which was from a local bike shop and the guy that my Dad bought it from, it
was second hand, said if ever Paul wants to go out on a cycle run I'm a member of the
local cycle club and if ever he wants to come out on the Sunday we go out together. So at
the age of 12 I started going out on this cycle run and it was so amazing and in hind
sight you know you're quite young at 12 to be in the middle of, well I come from Nottingham
in the middle of England and Derbyshire is a county near Nottinghamshire where it's very
hilly and there's a lot of open country side. At the age of 12 going on these rides for
45 miles or 50 miles was suddenly looking round and there were no parents and you're
on your own and it's like wow this is pretty cool, with the wind in your face and the sound
of the tyres, all the banter, all the jokes between each other and I just got hooked on
cycling really. I've sort of become, I don't know how but I've sort of become the spokesmen,
the non cycling spokesmen for the industry and added to that I'm a fashion designer,
I followed the tour for several years, presented a trophy at the last tour and this year they
very amazingly said to me would you like to design the jerseys you know. It was a real
privilege, fantastic you know to be able to do it.
I mean the thing about designing the Giro Jerseys is that the first step is actually
getting the existing ones and then just realising through discussion what you can and can not
change and obviously the priority is for the major sponsors that their logos are seen clearly
and then after that it's really, I call it really just a little nudge you know it's not
really a push i mean so all you can do is just do a little bit so I like the idea of
I mean pink's a pretty bold colour anyway for the main jersey and so I'm quite familiar
with a lot of pop art from the 60's and 70's and often what the pop artists do is put together
colours that really shouldn't go together like blue and bright yellow or red and orange
things like that so I thought red piping could be quite good almost like a pink printing
onto the pink as well. So they're all sort of slightly, slightly pop art approach and
just keeping it simple really, respecting it as just a nice jersey. Bradley's really
stylish and has been for many years and has got this strong link with the whole MOD era
and a big fan of Paul Weller and dresses in that very modish way. David Millar wears a
lot of Paul Smith and always looks very well dressed as well, as does Mark Cavendish but
I suppose out of the 3 Bradley's got this extra sort of stylishness, but it's interesting
how a lot of these lads are really interested in fashion and I suppose when I was 12 or
13 I wasn't actually aware that I was ever going to be involved in fashion but there
was a sort of certain code of style about the way you looked on the bike and obviously
the bike itself.
The joy of early jerseys like the Bianchi jersey is a fantastic one because it was just
the pale blue with Bianchi on it and then the, what else as there? The mountain, you
know the French mountain with the polka dot, with the red polka dots on, so beautiful and
so simple and of course the Giro jersey and then the maillot jaune, the yellow jersey
from the Tour de France. I've got a 19, i think its 1974, 76, Gimondi or Giomondi world
championship jersey which is in wool with the world championship colours and that is
absolutely sensational. Of course more recently the Sky jersey, their simplicity of the black
with the blue and the more minimalistic approach.