What's in a name? The raw in raw gear.
R stands for REAL
What do we mean by real? Real to us means authentic. We don’t photoshop our riders, we don’t need to; they are fit, fierce women and as we know, fit, fierce women come in all shapes and sizes not just what gets portrayed by some media and in the vast majority of marketing for athletic wear.
The ability to airbrush images in the digital age has led us to a point where these photos set an “ideal” that is simply unreal.
We’ve seen through the following that Celeste Barber has gained by parodying these types of images that many of us find what is being served up as marketing is unrelatable.
A stands for ACTIVE
I can’t underscore enough the benefits of being active for all of us, but you’re here on a
blog for a cycle clothing website, so I’m confident you already know this. We’re constantly told how important exercise is for bone health, heart health, lowering blood pressure and supporting cognitive function.
Not to mention studies into the positive impacts exercise has on the brain for things like depression. Harvard Medical School published an article in 2018 stating that exercise was as effective as anti-depressants for some people. I’m not suggesting physical activity is a cure all, but I do believe it can have an overwhelmingly positive impact on many aspects of our lives.
W stands for WOMEN
Competing priorities of household, kids, husbands, partners, exes, bosses, friends, parents, siblings, relatives, the list goes on and on. Run a google search on “why women put themselves last” and you’ll turn up hours’ worth of material from everyone from
Psychology Today to Oprah.com.
How can we be effective in supporting friends and family around us if we don’t look after ourselves?
When we do commit to making time to be physically active, we dust off the bike, pull out the running shoes and make a start.
Then we get to what motivated us to start raw gear, clothing sizing for women. Wearing cycling clothing can be intimidating enough when you’re conscious of the odd lump or bump that’s formed over the years. Finding you’re suddenly an XL when yesterday you were a Medium in your favourite t-shirt isn’t really going to do much for your self-image. Or worse, you are unable to find the jersey you like in your size, it doesn’t exist. Why companies would limit their sizing to exclude a significant portion of women who ride and are active, we’ll never understand. All we know is that this doesn’t help and we want to, we want all women who want to be active to be able to find cycling clothing in their size.
Real. Active. Women. Of all shapes and sizes. You’re the reason for our brand.
Thanks for reading.
