Sandra‘s Closet

Yesterday evening, I was invited to an evening on the topic of the future of fashion and fabrics by UBS at the FREITAG Lab in Zurich.

With lovely Natascha Lander, UBS Chief Investment Office, Wealth Management

The evening started with a private guided tour of the FREITAG factory by Daniel Freitag himself, founder of the Freitag brand, followed by drinks and networking and then seated dinner whilst listening to a presentation of Christina Dean, founder of The R Collective and Redress and a UBS Global Visionary, who was addressing the problem of waste and pollution by the fashion industry. My avid readers might recognize her from the UBS Unique – Economy of Fashion forum in 2017.

The first messenger bag F13 TOP CAT is exhibited at the MoMA in New York.

Let me get started with the story of FREITAG which is a truly inspiring one. In 1993, graphic designers and brothers Markus and Daniel Freitag were looking for a functional, water-repellent and robust bag to hold their creative work. Inspired by the multicolored heavy traffic that rumbled through the Zurich transit intersection in front of their flat, they developed a messenger bag from used truck tarpaulins, discarded bicycle inner tubes and car seat belts. This is how the first FREITAG bags took shape in the living room of their shared apartment – each one recycled, each one unique. By the way, the first messenger bag F13 TOP CAT wrote fashion history and can be looked at at the MoMA in New York.

Each FREITAG bag is unique made from truck tarps.

With their innovation, the brothers inadvertently triggered a seismic event in the world of bag making. Its tremors have since made themselves felt in Zurich and the cities of Europe and spread all the way to Asia, making FREITAG the unofficial outfitter of all urban, bike-riding individualists. Today, FREITAG is one of the most hyped brands in Thailand and Japan. The products are available in 24 by the brand owned stores as well as at over 400 resellers around the world with an extensive choice of over 4000 unique products available in the online store. I was pretty impressed of the work that goes into the shoot of each product. Imagine that every single bag is unique and therefore needs to be photographed individually.

Each bag is shot separately for the online store.

FREITAG likes the tarps that they make bags from to have some popping color schemes, but it’s not always so easy to find them, especially since they want to use truck tarps that were on the road for quite a time.

Since the first F13 TOP CAT messenger bag, the collection has spawned a full range of over 80 different models for all your carrying needs: from smartphone and laptop sleeves via backpacks and on to handbags, shoppers and travel bags.

Creating new shapes and models is part of the design process.

FREITAG has been at home in the Nœrd industrial complex in Zurich-Oerlikon since 2011. This is where the truck tarps we collect are taken apart, washed and cut to size. The sewing has been outsourced to other Swiss companies.

A great sustainable concept: unscrewed buttons.

Newest project: a small clothing line.

In 2014, the bag-makers gave themselves a new raw material to play with: F-ABRIC. Developed in-house from the ground up, the rugged, completely compostable textiles are based on bast fibers that are produced using a minimum of resources within a 2500-kilometer radius of headquarters. F-ABRIC thus more than lives up to the FREITAG philosophy: «We think and act in cycles.»

The team works following a self-management strategy. Each team member shows the time that he or she works on a project with the help of LEGO stones on a board.

«I stepped back as CEO. I am an originator, apostel, incubator and more.»
– Daniel Freitag

Daniel Freitag with me

FREITAG has not only committed to the circular, closed-loop economy but is also organized in circles: in 2016, the company, which still belongs to the Freitag brothers, abandoned the classical hierarchical structure and replaced it with Holacracy, a form of organization based on self-management.

We were served a yummy Züri Geschnetzeltes in form of mushroom protein instead of meat for the vegan surprise dinner at Noerd Kantine.

The guided tour by Daniel Freitag was very impressive and so was the vegan dinner in the Noerd Kantine, which is in the same building as the Freitag Lab. Personally speaking, FREITAG is a company that I would like to work in.

Christina Dean with me

Christina, who calls herself a «sustainable fashion advocate», started Redress following a phenomenal life-changing professional and personal experience. She used to be a dentist, then a journalist before moving to Hong Kong. After a bike trip through Southern China, she became increasingly interested in China’s environmental crisis. The more she investigated the sources, the more compelled she became by how the country’s fashion and textile industries were contributing to this drastic situation, which not only affects the planet but is also killing people.

Rescue. Reuse. Reimagine.

«Waste is not waste until it is wasted.»

This insight led to a huge professional change. First, she only wore for one year clothes that other people had thrown away. Parallel, she started the NGO Redress, followed later by The R Collective, that creates sustainable fashion using rescued textile waste sourced from the world’s leading luxury fashion brands and reputable mills and manufacturers. These materials are reused through upcycling, reimagining the destiny of textile waste with timeless designs. With these innovative techniques and sustainable designer collaborations, the team is catalysing the circular fashion revolution.

«Let’s be global fashion citizens, not consumers.» – Christina Dean

This said, I am wishing you a happy and inspiring long weekend!
Thank God it’s Friday, or as we Germans say Freitag…

LoL, Sandra

Photos in first college and of the first messenger bag: Courtesy of FREITAG
All other photos: © Sandra Bauknecht

During the vibrant atmosphere of London Fashion Week, I had the pleasure to participate in a very interesting new project combining the world of finance and fashion: UBS Unique – Economy of Fashion.

Just as the world around us is changing, the face of wealth is evolving. The global income of women will grow from USD 13 trillion to USD 18 trillion by 2021* – more than China and India’s combined GDP growth and since 2015, women have held 30%** of global private wealth.

As women are looking for a response to their needs, UBS Unique has been created. The aim? To catalyze a long-term change in the financial industry to better serve women and to enable them to make the most of their wealth.

My lovely host, Kathrin Genovese Head Vice Chairmen Office, Global Ultra High Net Worth

Therefore a lovely group of female ultra high net worth individuals from all over the world was invited by UBS to London for two inspiring days. The event had it all: shows, talks and insights on how fashion can change the world for the better.

As I thought you might be interested in what I have taken home from UBS Unique, here’s a quick roundup of insights from the event’s speakers.

«The future of fashion will see creativity re-emerge as a key driver to take us from our current crisis state and into a new model for fashion. If we don’t push creativity at every step of the fashion supply chain to find new ways to design, produce, sell, wear and dispose of clothes, then we face a bleak future for fashion.”» – Christina Dean

From left to right: Christina Dean, my humble self, Giorgia Caovilla and Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis.

The look of love – how will the fashion industry change?

Women should “fall in love with the fact that fashion is a force for good,” says Christina Dean, founder of Redress – an organisation working to reduce waste in the fashion industry. Christina believes fashion’s ethical future is in the hands of young designers and consumers. Or as Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis describes it vividly, “it’s down to designers to rebel. There’s a lot of pressure on designers to become commercial so it stops creativity. I am anyway bored of all the fashion shows. There are too many.”

Online shopping is definitely an opportunity as emerging designers cannot always afford a retail space. They have a different pricing model. But in terms of sustainability it can cause also problems as people end up buying multiple sizes knowing they’re going to return it.

Dress with Sense – the practical guide to a conscious closet by Redress

How can you play your part in making fashion more ethical?

As I am always promoting, you can easily play your part in making fashion more ethical by buying the things you love and wear them for longer. When shopping, think about the value, not the price. And consider ways you can make sure your investments match your ethics.

You can also donate your quality, branded items with high value to charity Redress for resale.

Designer Mary Katrantzou and me framed by UBS key speakers, James Gifford, Senior Impact Investing Strategist, Chief Investment Office, UBS Wealth Management, to the left and Helen Brand, Head of Equity Research, European Luxury Goods, UBS Investment Bank

A short industry outlook

The top 3 words executives used to describe the fashion industry in 2016*** were: «Uncertain, Changing, Challenging.» But despite the wider economic slowdown last year, fashion has been a key value-creating industry for the world economy. In 2017, a slight recovery is expected to a point where the industry may see some growth next year.

Let’s take China for example. Chinese growth hit a soft patch: a stock market dip and real estate concerns have decelerated chinese growth, and shifted attention to India, Turkey, and other high-growth markets. China’s fundamentals, including growth of the middle and upper classes, remain strong and the government’s new fiscal policies are expected to improve conditions in 2017, but uncertainty remains.

A woman shops in a Louis Vuitton store in Shanghai. © SCMP Photos

London-based Helen Brand, Head of Equity Research, European Luxury Goods, UBS Investment Bank, trusts in the mid market and expects “growth going forward to come from the Chines middle class consumer and therefore more at the entry level price points, with more chances for the handbag category compared to watches as many brands still have to strengthen the CHF 2000-5000 offer.“