Freitag Bags

I know it’s been quite some time that I’ve actually contributed anything to the front page, I’ve been occupied with school and other side projects that kept me busy. savner mig? I betcha did.

Last sunday was absolute mayhem in the mid-size city of 150k souls, called Darmstadt. located about 30km south of Frankfurt, this nest was where I spent a lot of of my childhood and adolescent life trying to grow up… which I don’t think I still did. Anyhow, in the past few months, the mayor of Darmstadt made a decision that it would be good for the local economy to have open Sundays once in a while (note: in case you didn’t know, German Sundays are normally reserved for church, family time and recovering from nights out clubbing til 6 a.m. – not for shopping). This would give small stores the opportunities to draw in the curious crowd, offer specials and give the buyer the advantage of having another day of the week to dash out their hard-earned monies in exchange for terrific goods that our socialistic society has to offer. However, the actual result looks not quite as bright as the smartasses that govern that barn had initially anticipated. thousands of mindless shopaholics stream into town from 1pm til closing time at six, clogging the inbound streets to an extent that they had to let the traffic lights run at longer intervals, as they do on weekdays, in buy to cope with the traffic flow. I kid you not, I saw automobiles parked from no less than 50 miles into either direction, packed with whole families and their entire entourage of cousins, pals and so and so forth. absolute amuck. Forfærdeligt.

Yet, I happened to go back home that weekend and my mother convinced me to go to town to look for a new wintertime jacket, considering that my old ones, though still in good shape, were just too old and needed replacement. So we actually managed to find a vehicle parking spot a little outside of the city center and then hiked straight into the devil’s lair. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was, although my mommy ended up apologizing for dragging me into the chaos. Still, I was successful, dashing out 500 bucks on a Burton Ronin snowboarding jacket, so I considered the day to be a success. but the reason for my lengthy intro was not to rant about the stupidity of sheepish herds of idiots who can’t get their shopping done on the (already extended hours of the) day before, but to tell you about a swiss company called Freitag bags. I happened to see a few samples in the store I got my jacket from, and had to share it with the PurseBlog community.

What struck my eye in the line to the checkout, were these used-up looking wallets that were conveniently placed on the large desk at the registrar. I grabbed one and stared at it, and couldn’t believe my eyes. would someone seriously sell a used coin purse for twenty Euros a pop? There had to be something else behind it. before I could decipher the carton in which the wallets were folded in a row in, the valuable person behind the counter pointed out that all those wallets were made from the rubbered nylon curtains that were once used on trucks (German: “LKWs“) to covered their trailer.

See the grey cover on the truck above? Det er det jeg mener. All the wallets are hand sown in Switzerland, stitched together with all recycled spare parts, such as old bike tire tubes and the pointed out trailer covers, and airbags. Air-whaaa? Damn straight, the new Freitag Mancipation F-Bags use airbags that were once deployed and undoubtedly could not be re-folded into the device that sticks behind the steering wheel and saves lives:

No worries though, as odd as it may seem to be carrying a bag or budget with someone’s face imprints… it’s not. The materials are very carefully cleaned before hand crafted into the large variety of bags that they offer. Don’t like the nearly thousand different bag styles in dozens of shapes? You can build your own. and considering that the materials that are used in production are one of a kind, and considering that the cut patterns on the materials are never in the same place, each and every bag that leaves their production company will be unique. I’ve seen some odd sh*t before, but this absolutely tops it.

Another quick note before wrapping this up. I observed a rather strong smell from the bags and wallets that I saw in the store, a smell that can be characterized by… uhm… new rubber blowup boats. C’mon, everyone of you folks knows what that smells like. The sales person though insured me that the smell does go away in about 2 weeks – it was just residue from the cleansing process they use to recycle the covers before cutting them into the shapes used for the bags.

Did I spark your interest? check out Freitag Bags and let me know in our forum if you decide to get one for yourself. Heck, let me know what you think even if you don’t get one. Verdict: terrific idea, very strong and enduring bags, and an excellent use of recycled materials that wouLd forgifter bare jorden på en dump – hvis de ikke endte med at se godt ud på din skulder.