As the northern hemisphere heads into the colder months, Rapha unveiled a few new pieces of clothing, and a few new styles for current designs.
City
Rapha’s head of product design Alex Valdman came from designing product at Giro, and, before that, Levi’s. When he came on two years ago, he first reworked Rapha’s trousers, then moved into tops like the new Longsleeve Merino Polo, which has a light, perforated wool back.
The Crew Mesh Knit, shown here, has bright pink cuffs with a reflective yarn tucked under the outer cuff, which can be rolled back for high visibility when riding.
Rapha calls the cuff style Signal, and it features on all the new longsleeve city tops.
The Pack Jacket, as it sounds, is a wind jacket that packs down into a small, self-contained pouch.
Classic
Rapha launched with its now distinctive, left-arm-band Classic jerseys 12 years ago. This year Valdman reworked them — “12 changes for 12 years,” I was told — but the original Sportwool material of 60% polyester / 40% merino remains in the jerseys.
For jackets, Rapha used to have softshell and hardshell jackets. Now the Classic Softshell II is a hybrid of the two.
Pro Team
Alongside socks, the Pro Team pieces are Rapha’s best sellers. New this year is a Polartec addition to the Pro Team Softshell Jacket.
Besides the jacket, yellow is now an option for base layers, bib shorts, and long and shortsleeve jerseys.
Souplesse
The women’s collection gets new thermal bib shorts plus new styles for existing pieces.
You can see more at http://pages.rapha.cc/feature/new-season-collections.
