FEATURE
Style, innovation, performance
Rebecca Morley visits Maap’s new London office to find out more about why the apparel brand has moved its European operations to the UK
M
elbourne-based cycling apparel brand Maap is looking to expand in the UK market, recently opening its first London office.
The current space, located at The Pill Box in Bethnal
Green, is a small workspace but features plenty of Maap’s clothing to offer visitors such as myself the chance to see its collections up close and get a feel for its quality. And the area is only temporary – the brand is looking at where it can find a permanent address in the city. “We wanted to get here, have a look around and see which
borough Maap is best suited to, get some riding in, meet some people and start to build a community around here. It’s not just a London thing, it’s definitely an entire UK plan that we have,” said Andrew Montgomery, UK/EU brand manager. On the decision to move European operations to the UK,
Montgomery explained that, coming out of the pandemic, a time which also saw the UK leave the European Union, it was becoming a lot harder to do business in the UK. “Even just the basic things like shipping a jersey to a customer, something
www.bikebiz.com
which we took for granted before, now became extremely difficult. The strategic decision was to move the office here, to the UK. ‘“Post-Brexit the UK market, which had always been one of
our top markets for the business, had started to drop off. For that reason, we made a strategic decision to move me out of Italy and back to the UK. “We went from Italy where we were one member of staff
to now starting to grow our team out as well. Operationally, we’ve now got our own UK warehouse and we’ve also got a UK website, so even previously, before Brexit, people from the UK were shopping in euros. “All these things have been done to help the people of the UK post-Brexit and make it a lot easier for them.” Established in 2014, Maap’s aim is to develop the art and
progression of cycling through a considered approach to style, innovation and performance. When Montgomery first arrived, the brand had six stockists across Europe, now it’s up to 45-50.
May 2022 | 7
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