London Transport Museum - Routemaster

2024 was a big year for London transport - celebrating 160 years of the Tube, and the iconic Routemaster bus turned 70!

The London Transport Museum celebrated with another Wallace Sewell design collaboration - introducing the RM70 scarf and throw.

The Routemaster bus was designed on behalf of London Transport by the designer Douglas Scott and his team, and Scott is also credited with the original moquette design too. According to Andrew Martin's field guide to moquette 'Seats of London', the colour scheme of the buses was officially 'burgundy lining panels, Chinese green window surrounds and Sung yellow ceilings' (to pre-empt the colour that years of top-deck smoking would create!) Scott's moquette was designed using just four colours to create a dark tartan with a striking yellow stripe.

For this commemorative design, we took inspiration from the original moquette, as well as the silver of the hand rails, the wooden floors, and the iconic red of the exterior. Blocks of bold overlapping colours are broken up by regular stripe details throughout. Vertical dark brown and silver lines are woven throughout the entire length of the scarf, referencing the tyre tracks and metal hand rails.