It was about 2am in a dive bar in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, on the 15th of April in 2013, the topic of conversation switched back again to old motorcycles and we were discussing the need for a really tough yet refined bag that we could use all week for work and use on the motorcycle for the weekend adventures.. “We should make one!” The first Malle idea was born.

We were both riding vintage British motorcycles (a 69’ Royal Enfield and a ’67 BSA) and we were both in New York that week designing for clients and it’s fair to say we may have been get a little tired of “working for the man” and excited by risk.. which design clients usually completely avoid altogether.

We immediately started searching old flea markets, looking for bags and luggage from the 50’s that had stood the test of time. We were really interested in what materials had lasted though the decades, knowing what we’d eventually put a Malle through in the future – it had to be the toughest and most durable bag around. We found old heavy duty canvas and leather tool bags as well as plastic coated Louie Vuitton duffels that had survived, but from day one of Malle, we wanted to create everything from natural/noble materials, no plastics or synthetics, creating products that we could repair infinitely and that had a positive ecological footprint. We got ahold of an old industrial sewing machine and ordered a roll of exceptionally heavy duty 18oz waxed canvas from Scotland, beautiful skins of leather from Italy and brass fixings from England.. 2 sewing machines later and at least a dozen prototypes we had our first Malle pannier, ready for testing.

By 2015 we were making more and more pieces of Malle luggage for city commuting and weekend adventures, but more of our customers were asking more demanding questions, ‘how will this perform in river crossings’, ‘do you have larger bags for month long trips’? So we started to work on the first Malle Expedition Collection, we designed 12 pieces of luggage and outerwear, from panniers and duffels and our first Expedition Jackets, Expedition Trousers, navigation pieces and we set out on a 10,000 mile expedition to cross the North American continent from New York to Los Angeles, via Canada and Mexico, on 2 Triumph Bonnevilles.

We set out 2 parameters before the adventure started, we wouldn’t pay for a nights accommodation (which one kind Canadian rider we met up in the lakes of Canada, referred to our road-side camping as ‘ditch-banging’ ) and we would seek out the most unique and celebrated artisans and craftsmen in America to visit on route. We rode from workshop to workshop, which created the expedition route and we titled the adventure ‘The Artisan Expedition’. On route, we wrote a series of articles for the design press and motorcycle magazines; about this celebration of the handmade world, in a land shaped by mass consumerism. We really wanted to experience a continent by what it made and champion hand made products, like the Malle pieces we were making back home. This Expedition also gave us the perfect opportunity to learn first hand what our fabrics, materials and designs could do, when put to the test over a long distance, in pretty much every weather condition America could throw at us. From minus temperatures in Canada, days of rain in Detroit, to 40 degrees + racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats and the deserts of Utah and New Mexico. After 37 days, we had destroyed some pieces, thoroughly battered every other Malle piece we had and what did make it back home again laid the informed foundation for the first Malle Expedition Collection.

In 2018 we set up the Malle Ambassador programme, where we sought out interesting and exciting adventures and explorers and helped them set out on their expeditions and provided them with new Malle kit and one off Malle prototypes. In 2018 Henry Crew set a new Guinness world record for the youngest person to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle, with a pair of Malle panniers strapped to his Ducati Scrambler. Other ambassadors using Malle kit include Charley Boorman, Ewan Mcgreggor, Jake Baggeley, Sam Barham, Shane Benson, Ollie Ollerton, Amy Shore, Henry Crew, Sophie Morgan, Ryan Pyle and more. Travel is expensive and if you’re going where no one else had been before, it’s often even more costly, so we’re always eager to support amazing people on their adventures. The ambassador program gave rise to ‘The Lost Club’, our speaker series and podcast that focuses on where our community gets lost around the world and why they do it!

In late December of 2014, a cold workshop in London needs a light at the end of the tunnel and we wanted to create something wild to look forward to the following summer. Racing is typically hugely expensive, dangerous, involves major sponsors, expensive race machines and is only accessible to a few people, but it’s all about risk and we like risk! We had an idea, that flipped racing on its head, we wanted to make it accessible for everyone.. more than that, we wanted to create a motorcycle race, that if you joined, you had to race. An “inappropriate motorcycle race”, where everyone was invited to race anything on two wheels, where no one is expected to win and it focuses purely on the fun of the motorcycle experience for our community. The idea for The Malle Mile was conceived, we hand printed some flyers on the kitchen floor, convinced a friend to let us tear up his lawn for the day and invited anyone and everyone we could think of! The first year we had 37 bikes racing and about 100 guests, in one of the first races we had priceless antiques racing custom scooters worth less than a taxi ride home. 

Over the last 8 years we’ve had the opportunity to work with some amazing people in the motorcycle, automotive and adventure space and we continue to seek out weird and wonderful collaborations with friends and likeminded creatives. Our first ever collaboration in 2015 was with custom motorcycle builder DeBolex Engineering, when their customer places an order for a custom motorcycle it may take a year before the final vehicle arrives, so they wanted us to create a custom piece of luggage that their customer could take away from the DeBolex workshop on the first day of the project. In 2016 we created bespoke Malle Tool Rolls and matching Expedition Jackets for Bicester Heritage, inspired by an old RAF tool-roll that they found in one of the old buildings of the former Bomber Station that has since become Bicester Heritage. In 2017 we were introduced through our friends at Deus Ex Machina in LA to the custom Porsche group Luftgekühlt (meaning ‘air-cooled’ in German) and they asked us to create a drivers capsule collection of luggage and drivers accessories to mark their annual show. We hand delivered 250 bespoke Malle pieces which launched at their mega Porsche show in downtown LA. In 2018 we collaborated with Jaguar Land Rover on their electric concept motorcycle, which became the ARC electric motorcycle company, the first prototype was launched at the Milan motorcycle show to much fanfare, with a custom set of Malle luggage and accessories designed for the ARC rider. We had the great fortune to meet the Royal Enfield team, which resulted in a collaborative project to create the support vehicles for The Great Malle Rally 2019, twin custom built adventure vehicles based on the Royal Enfield Interceptor. Naturally, these bikes came with the full Malle Rally luggage set up in a one-off red Malle waxed canvas.