Safi courageously puts the cutter on and pulls it briskly along the edge of the stencil. Three more cuts, then he puts aside the stencil made of transparent acrylic glass and lifts up the result: a black and green rectangle made of used truck tarpaulin. This is the moment when a new Friday bag is created.

Safi then takes the next stencil, places it on the tarpaulin, checks the position with narrowed eyes and puts the cutter back on. He continues like this until there is a stack of cut-out parts in front of him. Safi, Mona, Nikos, Sandra, Besjana and the other employees known as "bag designers" have what may be the most important job at the bag manufacturer Freitag: they decide every day at the cutting table in Zurich-Oerlikon what the brand's bags, backpacks and purses will look like in the end.

With the help of the stencils, they choose the section of the truck tarpaulin that they like best. Of course, there are a few rules. No brand names or faces may appear on the products, it must be efficient, waste should be avoided as much as possible. Otherwise, it is up to the creativity and experience of the bag designers how they place the stencils: whether the messenger bag will be white with a thick red stripe or rather red with white edges. Unique is a rather overused term, but at Freitag in Zurich unique pieces are actually created in series. Especially since each used tarpaulin is unique in itself, with individual graphic design and the traces of the road.

From the street to the museum

The idea of giving used truck tarpaulins a new life as a bag is now 30 years old. In 1993, the brothers Daniel and Markus Freitag sewed together their first messenger bag – on their mother's sewing machine. The machine was broken after that. The tarpaulins are a rather unruly material, tougher and stiffer than leather and correspondingly difficult to work with, but at the same time particularly durable. They are made of a polyester fabric on which liquid PVC is applied from both sides.

At the time, the Fridays were looking for a sturdy, water-repellent bag for cycling. When they didn't find what they were looking for, they had the aha moment when they looked out of the window of their shared flat onto a busy street. With straps made from used seat belts and edges made from equally used bicycle inner tubes, the first bag model was a prime example of upcycling. With their design, they gave waste a right to exist and thus a new value.

"Top Cat", as the original version is still available today, made it into the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2003. The very first example can be admired in Zurich's Museum of Design. But there is a good chance that you will also encounter Freitag products on the street. The company now manufactures around 400,000 products a year. Messenger bags, backpacks, luggage, shoppers or laptop sleeves. The leftover pieces from cutting are processed into card cases, key chains and other small items. They are sewn together in partner companies in Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

From Oerlikon to the world

All other work steps take place at Freitag's headquarters in Zurich-Oerlikon. Around 350 tonnes of discarded tarpaulins arrive here every year. Throughout Europe, a dedicated team searches for the raw material – and has to pay up to 300 euros per truck side. Freitag employees sometimes take photos of trucks at rest stops to draw the scouts' attention to particularly beautiful specimens.