ANYA VIOLET, CORINNE MAYER, JAIME DEMPSEY

ATWYLD: Making protective gear attractive to a growing audience

- JULIA LAPALME

In the male-dominated world of motorcycling, protective-gear makers largely approached designing for women by using either the stereotypical “pink it and shrink it” approach, or simply adding rhinestones, fringe, or prints depicting floral designs or tribal butterflies. And loudly logoed, to boot.

Things have finally changed over the past few years as several boutique brands have popped up offering a different design approach. ATWYLD, founded by Anya Violet, Corinne Mayer, and Jaime Dempsey, is one of the more prominent brands bringing a fashion-focused street-wear-inspired look to women’s riding gear. They all had observed lots of women rejecting conventional technical riding gear because they didn’t like how it looked, choosing to wear street clothes. “Why not take those protective qualities and put them into everyday street silhouettes?” Violet says. “The goal is to get more women to wear some level of protection.”

Violet is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco, and she spent the first decade of her career designing for prominent brands such as RVCA, Billabong, and O’Neill. When she first met her ATWYLD business partners, Mayer and Dempsey, during the early years of her women’s motorcycle camping event, Babes Ride Out, the three women hit it off. Their friendship grew through the community created by Babes and extended beyond the event.