What a saddle brand was doing at London Fashion Week

Let’s be honest.

As a bicycle saddle company, our usual “big event” involves a stuffy trade hall in Germany. It’s a place characterized by the omnipresent scent of pretzels, earnest discussions around foam density percentages, and a dress code that begins and ends with a branded white shirt.

So finding ourselves in the creative chaos of London Fashion Week for the Johanna Parv Autumn/Winter 2026 show was, let’s say, a gear shift.

We were there representing Selle Royal. Yes, Selle as in saddles. We spend an enormous amount of time thinking about your ischial tuberosities (your sit-bones) so you don’t ever have to. And we were there because Johanna Parv - an Estonian designer who has turned urban cycling outfits into something you want to wear rather than have to wear - asked us to collaborate.

The beauty of the mismatch

Stepping into the venue on Saturday, we prepared to feel like aliens. High heels aren’t part of our world. We live in moisture-wicking fabrics, and cyclist calves have a habit of stealing the spotlight in fashion-forward trousers.

Fashion people are intimidating; they wear sunglasses indoors and look far too good to be real. Cyclists, on the other hand, are intimidating because they’ll throw stats about wattage, cadence, and kilometers at you before you’ve even had your morning coffee.

Two different worlds. Or so we thought.

As we stepped inside, we were caught off guard. There was more in common between our worlds than expected. We found ourselves seated next to someone who looked just as delightfully out of place. We started chatting, and he admitted, with total sincerity, that he didn’t actually know why he was there. He was a carpenter who built things, sitting in the front row of a global fashion event, wondering if he’d wandered into the wrong building.

As the models completed their last loop and Johanna Parv herself stepped out to take her bow, our seatmate’s face lit up. “That’s my friend!” he grinned. “That’s why I’m here!”
In an instant, the high-fashion gloss cracked to reveal something far more relatable: a friend showing up to support a friend. It was hilarious, human, and completely grounding.

It made us wonder: how often do we realize the distance we feel toward someone or something is, in fact, much smaller than we think?

We love to put things in boxes. This is sport. This is art. This is utility. This is luxury. But by dipping our toes into a different box, we realized those lines mostly live in our minds.

Felt rather than measured

Johanna Parv understands that just because you ride a bike to a meeting doesn’t mean you want to arrive looking like you’re about to start a stage of the Tour de France. Her designs are a “manual for movement”: a concept that resonates deeply with us at Selle Royal. We don’t just make seats; we facilitate movement.

The theme for A/W 2026 was The Intimacy of Distances. The program notes spoke about how time, speed, and distance are felt rather than measured.

This, we understood immediately. Because nobody understands the feeling of distance quite like a saddle manufacturer. We know precisely how 15 kilometers feels different from 50. That distance is intimate; it’s a negotiation between your body, the machine, and the city infrastructure. It isn’t a number you see on a Garmin. It’s a sensation you feel in your body.

The hyper-reality of the commute

The show space was dominated by four massive screens acting as windows into the hyper-reality of the modern commute. We watched Johanna’s muses - real women, real commuters - navigating London’s urban obstacle course.

Usually, our products are invisible. They are literally sat upon. They do their best work when you don’t notice them at all because you aren’t in pain. But here, in this space, the saddles became a central character in the narrative as part of the set. To see a product we usually discuss in terms of pressure distribution and riding positions framed as part of a fashion story was… magical.

There was a wonderful mix of confusion and amusement on the faces of the front-row guests as they were guided to their allocated seats on our custom saddle benches. It was the ultimate test of our ergonomics: if you can sit comfortably through a 20-minute runway show in a structural skirt, we’ve done our job.

Judging by the fact that half the crowd stayed lounging on the benches long after the lights came up, we think we did.

The manual for movement

The collection itself was stunning. Woolen base layers were paired with hood-scarf layers that looked like they could withstand a gale-force headwind on London Bridge. There were jackets with pockets in the back - just like a cycling jersey - and trouser hems tucked neatly into tights, a move every commuter has made, though rarely with such grace.

As the lights came up and the crowd began to stir, we saw our carpenter friend walk up and wrap Johanna in a big hug. Walking out of the show, the fashion crowd felt a little less intimidating. Magic happens when you step outside your usual lines and shapes.

Johanna Parv proves that you don’t have to sacrifice aesthetics for function. You can have the poetry of movement and a place to put your keys. We proved that the distance between a commute and a catwalk is only as long as you imagine it to be.

After all, how many saddle brands can say they’ve made it into the pages of Vogue?