FREITAG lab. AG

In 1993, graphic designers Markus and Daniel Freitag were looking for a functional, water-repellent and robust bag to hold their creative work. Inspired by the multicolored heavy traffic that rumbled through the Zurich transit intersection in front of their flat, they developed a messenger bag from used truck tarpaulins, discarded bicycle inner tubes and car seat belts. This is how the first FREITAG bags took shape in the living room of their shared apartment – each one recycled, each one unique.

With their innovation, the brothers inadvertently triggered a seismic event in the world of bag making. Its tremors have since made themselves felt in Zurich and the cities of Europe and spread all the way to Asia, making FREITAG the unofficial outfitter of all urban, bike-riding individualists.

The first F13 TOP CAT messenger bag has since spawned the highly functional FUNDAMENTALS product line with over 40 different models ranging from smartphone sleeves and shoppers to notebook bags. And since 2010, the REFERENCE collection with Haute Maroquinerie made from vintage truck tarps has struck fear into the heart of the calf- and crocodile-recycling bag industry. Daniel and Markus Freitag still design the products. As Creative Directors, they dream up, develop and oversee every new FREITAG model until it is ripe for production. In 2014, they gave themselves a new raw material on which to flex their creative muscles: F-ABRIC. Their rugged, completely compostable textiles are based on vegetable fibers produced using a minimum of resources within an area of 2500 kilometers form the factory.

Tarp bag headquarters have been located at the Noerd industrial complex in Zurich-Oerlikon since 2011. Here, on premises measuring over 80,000 square feet in area, the tarps are disassembled and washed and cut to size by hand. FREITAG thinks and acts in cycles – and that is evident in the factory as well: Each step and process is looked at not only from the aspect of profitability but also through the eyes of FREITAG.