Freitag is a statement that makes the wearer feel different.

Strong, unique and authentic are three words that definitely represent Freitag bags. “The visuals are very attractive to the trained eye. Freitag is a happy surprise in this day-to-day world filled with mass-produced and standardized products,” says Windelin Hess (33), a designer who first bought a Freitag bag in 1994.

Freitag distances itself from imitative trends which result from mass production. The phrase “Each bag is unique” isn’t just the Freitag tagline: Freitag offers a unique declaration for the urban person suffering from “a feeling of disorientation and a need to communicate in the center of disconnectedness and individuality of urban life,” according to the authors of Freitag: Individual Recycled Freeway Bags.

The aforementioned book was printed with the same creative enthusiasm: 10,000 unique copies were printed with different covers. This 500-page book is not heavy on the text, but exposes the ecological, economic, and sociocultural motivations of Freitag since its foundation, as well as images of 3,000 Freitag bags and their owners. These are members of the neurotic metropolitan generation, who are surrounded by consumerism but want to look different.

To understand the context of Freitag’s success, you have to understand that Switzerland is a small, wealthy country. This country, which is often shown on post cards with blue lakes and flying geese, has a population of only 360,000, and its per capita income is an staggering US 587,000 dollars. According to the same book, “Swiss people are ready, willing and able to fill the big hole of boredom in their daily lives by shopping.”

Freitag’s success was supported by their smooth arrival into the Swiss underground scene. Freitag became a mandatory accessory for young people going to clubs or rave parties around Europe.

In 1999 Freitag opened a main outlet in Davos, a small city in the heart of Switzerland. Two years later, another store was opened in Hamburg. In 2006, Freitag opened yet another store in Zurich, which got a lot of attention because it was constructing by stacking 17 rusty, shipping containers. With a height of 26 meters, the store became a bonsai skyscraper in the city of Zurich, despite strict regulations of tall buildings.

Freitag products can be purchased online through www.freitag.ch. Since October 2002, Freitag offered a feature called F-cut, which allowed customers to design their own unique bags online. This Flash application presents a range of tarps from which to choose. If you’re not totally satisfied with the ones available, you can come back in a few days to check the new tarps in stock. Customers simply place the bag design on the section of tarp they want to choose. At the factory, the tarp will be cut following the customer’s specifications. Two weeks later, your new, custom-designed bag arrives at your doorstep.

The Top Cat Freitag bag has been added to a design collection at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), a huge honor coveted by artists the world over (to date no Indonesian artist’s work has been accepted by MOMA).

Since the 1980s, the question of environmental degradation has been a widely discussed topic, and not exclusive to environmental activists. Cries to stop deforestation, environmental pollution, and green house effect have all become popular movements. Terminology such as Eco, Green, and Global Warming are often used when discussing the importance of Reduce – Reuse – Recycle.

Some environmentalists consider recycling to be too expensive and too energy consuming. This is where upcycling provides a great alternative solution by turning useless, discarded material into something useful and new, like what Freitag has done. Anyone can find used, discarded objects and transform them into something newly functional.

If upcycling becomes a new trend, do upcycle products hold special economic value? Freitag’s success suggests as much. And it also suggests some important questions about what consumers want: For example, why would people spend 250 Euro on a bag made from old truck tarp?

It’s not hard to spot the young people in Europe walking around with these colorful bags, displaying a patchwork of fragmented letters and images and made of synthetic materials like thick plastics. These are the Freitag bags.

If the bags look a bit dirty, it’s not because they’re rarely washed. Most likely it’s because these bags are made from the plastic tarps that were once used to cover commercial trucks, accumulating dirt and silt that are difficult to remove during production of the bags. It’s hard to make them look completely clean. But that is what makes Freitag bags special.

It all started when Swiss-born Daniel and Markus talked about wanting to own bags like the ones used by postal delivery people in New York. These bags are practical, waterproof, large, and easy to carry on a bicycle. But these graphic designer brothers felt the price of a courier bag was just too expensive.

One morning in 1993, Markus headed into the industry district on his bicycle. He returned with a few sheets of used truck cargo tarp, which he hauled upstairs to their fifth floor apartment and dumped into the bathtub. Once the tarps were cleaned and dried he spread them out on the floor, between his mattress and a stereo, and he started cutting the tarp into patterns. Old seat belts were used as straps and broken inner bike tires were used to protect the edges of the bag.

A concept was born. They were making quality bags from used material. The materials they chose were waterproof, strong, and available in a variety of colors. The only new materials they utilized were wire, velcro and buckles.

Their new bag production changed their apartment living rapidly: “For weeks our bathtub was filled with dirty water and smelled like old tarps. The apartment was cluttered with various materials, bicycle tires and seatbelts,” recalls Oliver Gemperle, their former flatmate—his tone discontent with the state of their apartment at the time.

Gemperle also mentioned that an industry standard sewing machine had taken over their dining table. The used machine was purchased for US 500 dollars and was the first investment the Freitag brothers made in their new enterprise. And Gemperle was consoled with the gift of two pieces of the first version of Freitag bags. A gray Freitag bag, one of the first designs, is now part of a display at the Zurich Museum for Gestaltung.

These days, the Freitag brothers no longer make bags out of their apartment. They first expanded by opening the retour Gebr in 1995. Then in 1999, the Freitag lab.—a shorthand meant to signify both “laboratory” and “label,” was established. It reportedly grossed US 52 million dollars in 2003 and employed around 40 people fulltime. Freitag also supports 1,760 outsource staff through a manufacturing company which employs people with disabilities. This commitment to humanitarianism, combined with the environmentally thoughtful practice of making new products out of used materials, is what makes the Freitag business special.

In their first year of operation, Freitag only produced 40 bags. By 2007 they were producing 160,000 products a year. Now there are over 40 styles of Freitag bags, including courier bags, DJ bags, laptop bags, iPod cases, backpacks, wallets, shopping bags, purses, punching bags, and even footballs.

Freitag products are available in 350 stores spread out all over the world, including Switzerland, Germany, Austria, England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Turkey, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, China and Singapore. In Switzerland, the Freitag signature style is easily spotted as the bike baskets of girls on their way to school.

“Innovative,” “creative,” “niche market,” and other similar terms often used to describe some of the most noteworthy modern production systems definitely apply to this company. Freitag bags are like a shimmer of light in a dark urban market that reveals: “Look, it is possible to make good products, even when most people are limiting their creativity by only following their obligations and investing in stock.”