ATWYLD: A Prominent Gear Brand For Motorcycling Women

[Hugh Janus]

“We could not find gear that looked good and felt good on and off the bike, had the protective qualities we wanted, and still made us feel like ourselves” ( 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.”

Anya Violet (Julia LaPalme /)

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.

From left, Mayer, Violet, and Dempsey model some of the most recent apparel available from ATWYLD in front of their Southern California workshop: the Pit Crew Jumpsuit and Stay Fast 5 Panel Hat, the Alltime 2.0 Moto Jacket and Shred Moto Jeans 2.0, and the newly released Send It Jersey. (Julia LaPalme/)

While the three of them were on a ride up Angeles Crest Highway, they realized they were all wearing minimal protection in some way or another. “We could not find gear that looked good and felt good on and off the bike, had the protective qualities we wanted, and still made us feel like ourselves,” Violet recalls. All three women were veterans of the fashion industry, so aesthetics mattered just as much as protection. Each of them had already thought about starting a motorcycle gear brand, but “it wasn’t until we came together that it all started falling into place,” Violet says. In 2016, ATWYLD was formed.

Anya sorts through a rack of Alltime 2.0 Moto Jackets to pull orders for customer shipments. (Julia LaPalme /)

Their similar backgrounds but with different emphasis make them a strong team. Mayer, who works as a graphic designer for O’Neill and has worked for Stance, Volcom, and Roxy, is the creative director and handles all things related to the brand’s image. Dempsey is the product-development specialist, a role she concurrently holds at Add Black Agency. She is responsible for sourcing fabrics and finding the factories that can produce ­ATWYLD’s designs, utilizing her previous experience working for Volcom and L Space. As for those designs? That is Violet’s territory. She is the one sketching out concepts and shaping the pieces that eventually become real-life riding apparel. The three ambitious women run ATWYLD part time while each of them carries a full-time job. Because they are such a small company, Violet explains, “the three of us do everything from accounting, to customer service, shipping and receiving, events. Literally everything. We are small but mighty.”

Part of Anya’s quality-check inspection process for pieces arriving from their manufacturing factory includes measuring all the ­different panels of each garment. Here, she measures the pant leg width of the Shred Moto Jeans before adding them to the stockpile. (Julia LaPalme /)

The process for making their first piece of motorcycle gear, the Alltime 1.0 Moto Jacket, was a bigger challenge than they’d anticipated as they sourced functional fabric from various manufacturers and worked to bring it all together. “I’d say we went through about six to eight prototypes,” Violet explains. “The design concepts were the easy part. It was actually getting them made and perfected—that was hard.”

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As ATWYLD progressed and expanded its line, it strived hard to maintain US-based manufacturing. “We liked the idea of being close to the process and keeping an eye on quality,” Violet says. “But we found it increasingly difficult to find a [manufacturer] in LA that has the expertise needed to build some of the garments we design, as well as the attention to detail needed to execute them.” Maintaining a high standard of quality has led them to other regions of the world that specialize in certain fabrics and garment styles. Still, “as of today, about 75 percent of our line is made in California, as we have great partners for certain styles.”

As a boutique brand, ATWYLD’s three-woman team manages all elements of running a small business themselves, including packaging orders for direct shipment to customers. (Julia LaPalme /)

Over the past four years, this boutique business has grown through word-of-mouth. ­ATWYLD is now carried in more than a dozen stores throughout the US, as well as a few locations in Canada and Australia. Given the popularity of the brand among female riders, it’s clear the company’s aim was spot-on. Violet continues to listen to feedback from riders and applies it to her design concepts. She insists that ATWYLD sets itself apart from other gear companies through its fit, styling, quality, and design. “We are closer to the target demographic because we are the target demographic.” Considering the landscape of the rest of the motorcycle gear industry, the fact of being women who ride, designing for women who ride—that in itself makes all the difference.

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