Though once considered cumbersome, geeky investment pieces, e-bikes have won over city dwellers the world over, gradually becoming part of the fabric of urban life — as the plethora of battery-enhanced bikes to rent clogging pavements in London, Paris, New York, Copenhagen and beyond well prove. Few can deny their popularity, which has largely been won on the grounds of their eco-friendly credentials and their point-to-point efficiency. But, with their heavy frames and garish hues, they hardly offer a stylish way to get about town.
Save for one exception, that is: the VanMoof, purveyors of the svelte, Batmobile-y two-wheelers you’ve no doubt seen whizzing through your city’s streets. Founded in 2009 by Dutch brothers Taco and Ties Carlier, the Amsterdam-based company has offered e-bikes a world away from unwieldy battery packs and hefty chassis from the get-go. As undeniably chic as they are, though, VanMoof’s central ambition goes beyond simply overhauling the image of the e-bike; rather, their aim is to affect how people move around and interact with the cities they live in — and to find cleaner, greener ways of doing so.
“Our company was created on the ambition of making the world’s cities better places to live — both in terms of how they operate and flow, and more fundamentally in terms of how the people who live in them experience them,” says Jonathan Hum, VanMoof’s Chief Marketing Officer – a mission objective that made the product’s seamless integration with the urban contexts it was built to occupy a key focus. Naturally, this entailed a design approach that placed function and form on an equal footing, viewing their bike as “a thing of simple, functional elegance – deliberately and carefully designed to be both beautiful and practical, intentional in both its aesthetic and features”.
When it comes to the features, some of the bike’s most noteworthy gizmos include a kicklock and in-built alarm system, which — combined with the bike’s smartphone connectivity and traceability — minimises the chances of it getting nicked and eliminates the need to lug around a chunky lock. Impressive as these features are, though, it’s arguably the design calibre that has elevated VanMoof beyond the status of ‘just’ another e-bike, cementing the brand as a bona fide cultural presence.
That is, after all, what made the S3 — the brand’s classic straight-frame silhouette — a ride-away hit with a number of artists and culture-shapers, with early fans including Frank Ocean, Tyler, the Creator and West Coast rapper Aminé. Early on, trend consultant Samutaro noticed the bike cropping up across a number of archive pages he was a keen follower of, leading him to “do some digging and run a post on my feed discussing the cultural resonance of the brand,” he says. The post’s success saw him eventually become a London-based VanMoof ambassador, joining riders including Ciesay of Places + Faces and Bone Soda’s Skinny Macho.
To him, VanMoof’s cultural resonance is owed to a clever combination of head-turning design and clever positioning. “They’re really tapped in at getting the bikes to the right people and places to help give a new, cool identity to e-bike culture,” he says. In recent years, though, the company has turbocharged their efforts, increasingly becoming a cityscape fixture during fashion weeks in Paris and New York, offering rides to the legions of editors and KOLS that descend upon town.
More than just providing a traffic-beating way for fashion folk to nip between shows, though, VanMoof has branched out into the field of fashion collaboration, teaming up with GmbH, GANNI, Jacquemus and Loewe. Rather than a grab at fashion-adjacent clout, it’s a step in VanMoof’s mission to establish itself as a community-driven cultural force, with its products as physical touchstones of the values it communicates — much like the brands they’ve teamed up with. “Enduring brands transcend category to become a meaningful and sustained part of the cultural vernacular in their own right,” Jonathan says, “and that’s our ambition: to be a brand that stands on its own terms rather than in comparison to other brands in our category.”
“Fashion brands, and those in their wider communities, recognise that, while operating in very different sectors, we share a core mindset and philosophy: we both place a high value on design (and design integrity), and commit to intentional innovation,” he continues. “We also both share a fascination with the richness and promise of the city: great fashion brands have historically connected and identified strongly with their cities of origin, and have found great creative inspiration in the ways people engage with, and co-create in, them. So have we. Above all, partnerships with fashion brands help us shift the conversation on biking – e-bikes in particular — beyond tech specs and functionality, and give us the range to break down some of the conventional (and dated) stereotypes around what it looks like, and what it means, to ride.”
While that may sound unilaterally beneficial, it also offers VanMoof’s partners novel ways to convey a more expansive, holistic image of the lifestyle their work embodies, without having to rely on predictable collaboration formulae. Violette Serrat, the founder of cult French beauty brand VIOLETTE_FR, was first drawn to VanMoof on account of its “slick design, practicality and ease,” she says. “They create the connection in people’s minds that a bike isn’t only to work out, but a way for daily transportation — and transportation can be an extension of your style and personality.” Rather than the bike’s technical specifications, it was its embodiment of an approach to city life that most deeply resonated with her — an ethos at the heart of her own brand. “Beauty to me is on the go. It’s based on our mood, which can change from one place to another. I love to feel free and travel on my bike with my on-the-go products,” she says. “I think getting out of the classic beauty collab is a way to reach a wider audience. It makes you realise that beauty is to be found everywhere, and not just locked in your bathroom. It’s there in the red light on your bike, in the subway, at a restaurant,” or even at Le Bon Marché, the recherché Parisian department store where you’ll find a VIOLETTE_FR pop-up with a co-branded VanMoof bike at its heart.
Seeing parallels drawn between a beauty brand and an e-bike maker may be unexpected, but it speaks measures of the extent of VanMoof’s success in shifting the cultural climate around two-wheeled transport. In just over a decade, they’ve not only made a case for the environmental merits of cycling, but also make it look pretty damn cool. “One of our biggest achievements as a brand has been to continuously redefine the narrative, and challenge perceptions and expectations, around e-bikes,” Jonathan says, “which has been both to our benefit, and also to that of our category as a whole.” You heard him — time to get VanMoof-ing!