It is very strange to think about it right now, the car coming and realisation of unavoidability… bang! body is flying! It was the first crash ever and the feeling was unusual. There was not much time to think about anything, it all happened in split second and every action i did was to save my bones and the car. It was not a safety gear which saved me – as I was not wearing any – it was pure luck. And while sitting on the tarmac I had this thought echoing in my mind: I ‘m not ready to leave this to luck alone!
Reality is: I can’t find anything I like to wear and be relatively safe on the bike. I hate fashion, but I still love beautiful clothes, I have years of experience in the clothing industry and I have my sister with exceptional skills to create them, so what stops us from making some clothing which would make sense and the most importantly have a purpose?
My sister worked for a luxury fashion house specialising in leather and furs. At the end she found herself with a baggage of skills in handling leather and with clear understanding of how short the life of high fashion is. It was 50/50 – disappointment vs advantage… So she had a choice to make. ha!
We happen to be a pair of petrol-heads and, believe it or not, share same passion for clothes. She has been listening for my complains on the subject of clothes for bikers for a while… She started to feel my pain! As she said once: “There are so many men riding, looking like robots (meaning they all look the same in uniformed clothing). How should a girl know if it’s her man riding there? Or maybe it’s that one over there? ”
For us it has always been about the lines and silhouette, techniques involved, quality and purpose/ function. One can put all the details in the world on the jacket but if it doesn’t make a good shape out of you and it’s not comfortable – it ain’t gonna work. Most important is to catch the right shape for the garment, to make a person feel good and confident when wearing it.
It’s about the man and his machine and not the machine and then the man. At the end of the day it was he who chose the machine.
werks’ unifying factor is a certain kind of approach to life and to craft which stands beyond just music and art, often found in out-of-the-way obsessions like motorbike customisation or longstanding traditions like tailoring; craftsmen who work to fulfil a particular vision, however idiosyncratic it may appear.
So we are back at square one.
