Bally fell under the sway of biking for Spring. "Everybody's always whizzing around town on the bike, leaving the car," said Michael Herz, its co-designer. "You can't park." As so often happens with a hundred or so years of brand history behind you, a relevant analogue from the archive presented itself: As it turns out, Bally sponsored the 1952 Tour de Suisse. And so they were off. Herz and Graeme Fidler structured their presentation in three parts: city biking, off-roading, and racing. All of the bags, right down to the crocodile iPad case, were designed to fit on, or snap onto, bike frames. A new shoe, a replica of the 1952 cycling shoe, debuted, though the latter-day version is sneaker-y enough for everyday wear. Which is the nice thing about Bally's entire collection, for those last few of us not whizzing around. The bike coats (né car coats) and blousons in bonded leather and washable, water-repellent techno-suede require no wheels. Nor do the shoes with newly developed FlexTech engineering, which allows for a super-flexible sole on a Goodyear welt construction.
