The Piccadilly line moquette bags that Tube commuters have long admired from the inside of a carriage are now available to carry through the streets. Transport for London has joined forces with accessories company Signare to release a collection of woven accessories inspired by the deep navy upholstery that lines the seats of the Piccadilly line, timed to celebrate the line’s 120th birthday.
The range covers a pleasing spread of everyday carry: rucksacks, card holders, purses and make-up bags, each rendered in a material woven to echo the line’s seat pattern. TfL’s roundel symbol appears throughout, alongside the phrase ‘Mind the Gap’, the kind of detail that stops the collection tipping into mere novelty and grounds it in the genuine visual language of the Underground. The actual seat fabric, for the reassurance of regular commuters, has not been touched.
Where to find Piccadilly line moquette bags in London
The collection is not sold online through a single shop but is available across a handful of London retailers, most of them well placed for visitors already moving through the capital’s busiest quarters. The London Transport Museum Shop in Covent Garden (WC2E 7BB) is the natural first port of call, the London Transport Museum has long been the keeper of moquette heritage, stocking everything from reproduction poster prints to archive seat samples, so the Signare pieces sit comfortably in that company.
Beyond Covent Garden, the bags are stocked at the Tower Bridge Gift Shop (SE1 2UP), Medici Gallery in South Kensington (SW7 2LT), Giftbox Britain on Whitehall (SW1A 2BX), and two branches of Cool Britannia, one on Buckingham Palace Road (SW1W 0PP) and one on Portobello Road (W11 2DZ). Between them, those six locations cover the South Bank tourist trail, the museum quarter and the Notting Hill end of the city, which means most visitors will find one within reasonable reach of wherever they happen to be spending their afternoon.
A collection timed to the Piccadilly line’s 120th year
The anniversary that prompted the launch is worth pausing on. The Piccadilly line has been moving Londoners for 120 years, its deep blue threading west from Heathrow and north to Cockfosters, passing through some of the city’s most recognisable stations along the way. The moquette pattern the new accessories borrow from is one of those quietly iconic design decisions that most passengers absorb without quite registering, the geometric weave that has coloured the interior of the carriages for decades and become, in its own understated way, part of what a journey on the Piccadilly line feels like.
Plans to upgrade the line’s trains have been under development since 2018. When that project is completed next summer, passengers who have bought into the collection will be able to carry their Piccadilly line moquette bags into a substantially different set of carriages, air-conditioned, modernised, reportedly far removed from the current rolling stock. There is a certain satisfaction in the timing: a commemorative collection that looks back at the line’s heritage arriving just before a major leap forward in its infrastructure.
Whether you are drawn in by the design, the anniversary, or simply the appeal of carrying a piece of London’s transport history down a street outside London, the collection is out now across all six retailers. The London Transport Museum Shop in Covent Garden is probably the most atmospheric place to pick one up, though the Portobello Road branch of Cool Britannia will suit anyone who prefers their souvenirs with a little more market-day energy.