FREITAG AT MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2023

Media release, April 2023

«ALWAYS BETA. NEVER WASTE.»
FREITAG AT MILAN DESIGN WEEK

Thinking and acting in cycles is deeply rooted in the FREITAG culture. At this year's Design Week in Milan, the Swiss bag makers provide insight into two future projects with an exhibition at the new Center for Architecture and Design, Dropcity, showing visions of and with new circular materials.

For FREITAG, there is no alternative to the circular economy. Today, our overriding aim is to keep products and materials in circulation for as long as possible and for the company to free itself from linear processes. Measures we’ve already taken to extend the lifetime of our products, such as upcycling, one-time recycling or repair, are no longer enough for concerted, all-inclusive action. So, instead, the Zurich-based bag manufacturers are working to close off all the material cycles and become a genuinely circular organization. 
For FREITAG, it means that product design does not begin with the product itself but with the material and the people who produce it. Nor does it end when someone buys the bag, but when the bag’s life cycle is over. And, at this point, it becomes once again the input material for something new. 
 
For Design Week 2023 in Milan, the company has fused two projects into an exhibition that demonstrates its attitudes and history while offering insights into the circular design of the future. Apart from telling the story of how FREITAG was born, the installation also shows how the company joined forces with conceptual artists and twins Patrik and Frank Riklin to take the supply chain of bag designers ad absurdum. From this artistic perspective, the Zurich brand uses "Circular Tarp" to give a serious and realistic demonstration of how a cyclical future might look: Together with other industrial partners, FREITAG is researching and working towards the development of a truck tarp that, even after a long second life as a bag, doesn’t end up in the garbage but back in the cycle.

And for the first time, FREITAG provides an insight into a new approach to circular product and material development: A functional backpack that, from straps to buckles and fabric, is made of a single, recyclable material. The underlying idea is that although some materials are already recyclable today, only a few of them end up back in the cycle. FREITAG believes we can tackle this dilemma more successfully if products are made from just one recyclable material. At the end of their lifetime, they could be returned to the cycle in their entirety without the time- and energy-consuming procedure of taking them apart. 
 
From April 15 to 23, 2023, the FREITAG installation "Always Beta. Never Waste.” is showing in Tunnel 58 at Dropcity. Housed in the century-old Magazzini Recordati warehouses that are part of Milan’s Central Station, it will provide an insight into the challenges behind the development of materials and systems for circular products.
 
Opening times: 
10 am - 6 pm 
 
Date: 
April 15-23, 2023
 
Address: 
Dropcity 
Tunnel 58
Via Sammartini 58
20125 Milano
 
FREITAG installation at Tunnel 58
 
About FREITAG:  
Since 1993, FREITAG has injected used truck tarps with new life by transforming them into functional bags and accessories. Each one recycled, each one unique. In 2003 the F13 TOP CAT model was included in the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA). The FREITAG lab. ag with its headquarters in Zurich-Oerlikon is still owned by the two founders and brothers, Daniel and Markus Freitag, and these days employs around 250 people. The company also runs 30 FREITAG Stores worldwide, one of them based in Milan. 
www.freitag.ch
 
About Dropcity: 
Dropcity is a new Center for Architecture and Design that will be developed along Via Sammartini in Milan. Located inside the Magazzini Raccordati at the Central Station, this project is an initiative conceived by architect Andrea Caputo back in 2018 with the aim of establishing a place for people to meet and discuss architecture, design and the contemporary city. Dropcity will create an urban model unseen before in Europe, divided across 28 tunnels and hosting exhibition galleries and workshops. A material library and research area focusing on architectural and design topics will round off the program. www.dropcity.org