Overview
- The company publicly launched the Reference collection on Thursday with four hand-made, monochrome bags called R201 Elly, R202 Bates, R203 Mazie and R204 Nan.
- Each bag is crafted from hand-selected truck tarpaulins, finished with recycled-polyester linings, and ships with a detachable repair kit made from the same tarp so owners can mend wear themselves.
- Freitag is selling the pieces as a premium extension rather than a rebrand with prices ranging from about EUR 360 to EUR 520 and availability through Freitag.ch and its retail network.
- The line is produced in small European series because upcycling tarps requires sourcing, quality testing, hand disassembly and washing, a process the company says raises material-and-labor costs to roughly three times that of new material.
- Beyond Reference, Freitag is road-testing a recyclable 'circular tarp' and experimenting with mono-material designs as a longer-term path to true material circularity while using its stores as repair and service hubs to keep products in use.