In a cooperative venture with local retail partner June Co., FREITAG is opening a store in Seoul’s vibrant Hongdae district. The store will be the Zurich bag manufacturer’s third in the South Korean metropolis.

This new FREITAG store will have nothing to hide. Products are delivered directly in front of the store entrance. Inside, too, there’s a spirit of openness and transparency. On view to customers and exuding an unmistakably industrial atmosphere is a high-bay warehouse with characteristic FREITAG boxes and a conveyor belt from the entrance to the storage area.

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The obvious advantages of this warehouse-in-shop solution? The store crew can track the flow of goods and ensure that the re-stocking process runs perfectly smoothly. Currently, there are 866 unique bags and 865 accessories awaiting their proud future owners.

A Company that makes one-of-a-kind bags from used truck tarps, safety belts and bicycle inner tubes also has an original take on shop design. And here, being original beats cheap and fast every time. Swiss-born three-dimensional designer Leandro Destefani (zauberaller.art) took his inspiration from the FREITAG factory in Zurich. The design was turned into reality by Jongil Lee (Yigak Construction). It’s not the first time the two pals have got together to do something out of the ordinary for FREITAG’s presence in Korea.

The local store crew was involved in planning the sales area and warehouse from the beginning to ensure a comfortable workplace and an optimum workflow. Admittedly, this isn’t quite in line with the customer-centricity dogma currently prevailing in retail. Then again, brothers Daniel and Markus Freitag developed their first messenger bag in a student flat-share on an exhaust gas–saturated main transit axis in Zurich and not in a sustainable disruption workshop.