From Zurich to Kyoto – with Love

FREITAG has always felt connected with Japan, and since the opening of the first FREITAG store in Tokyo in 2011 at the latest, the love is official. Now the Zurich-based bag manufacturer has opened its first store in Kyoto, a new location in the country with which it shares its enthusiasm for the Wabi-Sabi customary aesthetics. It is located close to the ancient Nishiki market and the metropolitan Nakagyo-ku pedestrian mile.

On the outside of the building, a giant, real-size image of a truck is displayed on the façade, while on the inside, the mix of the smell of tarpaulin fabric and the sweat and wear and tear is clearly noticeable: on an area covering 80 square metres, which has been stringently designed in the industrial style of the Swiss logistics halls at home, around 1,100 recycled, unique bag-shaped items are presented. But FREITAG not only wants to sell the much sought-after goods in its store, but also offers its customers the opportunity to work on the production of a bag copy in the store’s own workshop.

Thus the brand is not only perceptible and smelling through and through, but above all becomes a holistic experience. So it seems as if the step from Zurich to Kyoto was more than right, because hardly any other city embodies the symbiosis of old and new so extremely important for FREITAG as perfectly as this historically and culturally important metropolis.