This Local Company Wants Yoga Mats to Look More Like Skateboards 

David AHemsa on a mat designed by JohnFtheArtist | Photograph by Joe Longo

“A good friend of mine is a yoga instructor in Doylestown, and I was leaving her class one day when I thought to myself, Skateboards have awesome art on them. Why aren’t yoga mats the same?” Holly Rogers, founder of local yoga mat company Spiritual Revolution, says. That’s when the Upper Dublin resident decided to ditch her life as a lawyer in downtown Philly and start a yoga company instead.

But it’s not just any yoga mat company: Spiritual Revolution yoga mats are made without PVC, a plastic commonly found in yoga mats that doesn’t biodegrade and ends up sitting in landfills when a yogi ditches their old mat for a new one. Instead, they use a natural tree-rubber base that’s biodegradable. And what makes the mats even cooler is that they’re covered in artists’ work — much like many skateboards — some Philly artists included.

As Rogers explains, “I’m an artist and my mom is an artist, so two of the pieces we use are mine and my mom’s, but I wanted to get other artists, too.” So far, Rogers has been able to connect with five artists around the country, a few of whom are local, who are willing to have their art put on the mats: Drew Brophy, Dore’ Vorum, JohnFtheArtist, Billy the Artist and Pam Longobardi.

The company digitally transposes the artists’ work onto the mats using water-based ink, and the results are way more fun than your go-to black Lululemon mat (which I, myself, am totally guilty of owning, by the way). If you hop on over to the website, you’ll notice the Urban Liquid mat is covered in a photo that captures the scene of a busy Philly street reflected on the side of bus. Then there’s the Symbolic Flag mat, which features an original hand-drawn piece by New Hope-based JohnFtheArtist. And for those of you looking to satisfy a bad case of wanderlust, there’s also a mat featuring a San Francisco sunrise, and that’s just naming a few of their designs.

You can learn more about the company and see the all the mats here. Be warned, though: You will probably want to buy one.

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