Milan Design Week 2026

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NABA x FREITAG: THE MESSENGER IS ON THE TABLE

NABA hacks FREITAG: New perspectives on a bag icon by the next generation of designers

ZURICH / MILAN – ZURICH / MILAN – NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, and Swiss upcycling pioneers FREITAG present “THE MESSENGER IS ON THE TABLE” during Milan Design Week 2026. Opening April 20, the exhibition at the FREITAG Store Milano showcases ten product hacks of the F11 LASSIE—the iconic small messenger bag originally designed in 1995—reimagined by students from NABA’s Design and Fashion Design Areas. The experimental works are presented within an immersive layout conceived by the Academy’s MA in Interior Design.

The name FREITAG has been synonymous with messenger bags since 1993, when brothers Markus and Daniel Freitag cut their first bag from upcycled truck tarpaulin in their Zurich apartment. Their original bag is now part of the MoMA collection in New York, and the brand has since expanded into numerous well-known models, like the small messenger F11 LASSIE.

For this year’s Milan Design Week, the Swiss bag makers challenged Design and Fashion Design Areas students from NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, to envision the "hack" of tomorrow’s messenger bag. In an intensive workshop, students explored value-based product hacks that embrace the FREITAG core values, such as recontextualization of waste, the uniqueness of one-offs, and a commitment to durability. The exhibition showcases these prototypes and concept ideas alongside sketches, and material experiments from the joint project.

Under the guidance of Claudio Larcher (NABA Design Area Leader), Sofia D’Andrea (Design Area Academic Assistant), and Antonio De Marco (NABA lecturer), students developed customizations by questioning the role of the bag in 2026. Through this lens, they transformed the F11 LASSIE—a small messenger bag originally designed in 1995—into ten unique personal companions. These designs go beyond mere utility to explore contemporary functionality by re-evaluating archetypes and creating objects as a medium for social statements.

To present these ten unique hacks—created in pairs by 20 future designers—5 students from the Academy’s MA in Interior Design, led by Course Leader Germana De Michelis, developed and produced a dedicated scenography. This immersive layout provides a narrative context for the experimental designs.

The exhibition “THE MESSENGER IS ON THE TABLE” will launch during Milan Design Week on April 20, 2026 at the FREITAG Store Milan at Viale Pasubio 8.

To celebrate the collaboration, a dedicated evening of dialogue and design will take place on Thursday, April 23 from 6.30 p.m, featuring a talk with NABA lecturers and a FREITAG Holistic Product Designer, followed by an aperitivo.

ABOUT FREITAG

FREITAG makes bags and accessories from used and, increasingly, circular materials. What began in Zurich in 1993 with messenger bags made from discarded truck tarps now comprises around 60 models, every product a one-off. FREITAG products are robust, functional everyday companions that, thanks to a range of repair and exchange services, can expect an even longer, more fulfilling life. FREITAG has its headquarters in Zurich-Oerlikon and runs 30 FREITAG Stores worldwide, one of them based in Milan.

We think and act in cycles.

www.freitag.ch | @freitaglab #frtg

ABOUT NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti

NABA is an international Academy focused on arts and design: it is the largest Academy of Fine Arts in Italy and the first one to have been recognised by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), back in 1981. It was selected by the QS World University Rankings® by Subject Art & Design as the first Italian Academy of Fine Arts worldwide and 41 st among the Top 50 institutions in the world. With its campuses in Milan, Rome and from A.Y. 2026/27 also in London, NABA offers academic diplomas equivalent to first and second level university degrees in the fields of design, fashion design, graphics and communication, multimedia arts, new technologies, set design, visual arts, as well as PhD and Special Programmes.

Through Artistic Intelligence, we nurture people to design a new tomorrow.

www.naba.it