What do you get when you cross graphic designer biking brothers with a Swiss motorway? Why, the world's funkiest bag of course! It is difficult to imagine owning a bag that had a previous life on the motorway, but crazy as it sounds, Freitag bags are made from used truck tarpaulins, car seat belts, inner tubes from bicycle tires and used airbags.
Not only are these bags environmentally friendly but they look absolutely great! Everyone is talking about them, from the purse blogging community to motor biking blogs, all exchanging views and photos of these hip bags with the un-hippest of origins.
So how did this happen? The story of Swiss-based Freitag is the story of 'two bike-riding designers living next to the truck route in Zurich'. What is different about the Freitag brothers is that they took inspiration from looking out onto a daily scene of trucks belting up the motorway that would quite frankly have depressed anyone else.
Spurred on by the inherent characteristics of discarded used truck tarps - virtually indestructible and 100% waterproof - they began making bags from the discarded tarps for their own personal use, probably in need of robust messenger bags themselves as they blasted up the motorway on their bikes. This was back in 1993. Soon, the F-bros began making the tarp bags for their friends. Before long, word got around, and shops began requesting lines to sell in their stores. The rest is history.
Freitag Freeway bags remain completely different from anything else available today. Each bag is hand-cut making each design unique. Every bag is Swiss-stitched using recycled spare parts, such as airbags and rubber tubing (all done by a company employing disabled people). Produced from fully recycled products, the materials are thoroughly cleansed before being hand crafted into a Freitag original. The bags come in colour ranges which vary 'according to pan-European trucks of Western Europe'. This is because the tarps are usually used for advertising, and painted to reflect the brand being carried or the corporate logo.
The result is a different design every time, giving you a thoroughly individual bag, unique in the sense that no two pieces of cut recycled truck tarpaulin are the same. And maybe that in part explains Freitag's success - because like ourselves, no two Freitag bags are identical.
Currently, the line includes everything from messenger bags, handbags, DJ bags, Miami Vice bags, wallets, backpacks, travel bags, sports bags, to laptop covers and ipod sleeves. Visit the website