EXTRA baggy

Mathias Lippitsch is the director of Kostümhaus and founder of Wien Zwölf

... last week I talked to Mathias Lippitsch, the director of Vienna's Kostümhaus, one of the city's best-known and most notable costume rentals, which also collaborates with various theatres and film production companies. Now, the basic idea that led to the launch of the brandnew label Wien Zwölf in late 2010 was to optimize the capacities of Kostümhause's own workshops and develop a brand and product of their own. This ended up being a beautiful bag which immediately became very popular - one of the reasons is that a lot of stylists come to Kostümhaus, and they usually carry large bags around with them (the standard equipment is a yellow Ikea bag, as most of you will know). Well, to cut a long story short, the Wien Zwoelf bag was introduced some months ago, a sample collection is currently on its way to Australia or so it would seem, and an order was already placed by a shop from San Francisco. A beautiful success story indeed. And a sustainable one, too - as the bag is made of a mix of new and recycled material (read: kitpack, felt, firefighter's hose, parachute), and as an extra goody there is the included shopping bag that you can unfold to store away your grocery shopping - that's a nicely versatile design approach, I find ...

the bag that comes complete with a plastic bag made of recycled parachute material

... il y a quelques jours, je suis allé parler avec Mathias Lippitsch, c'est le directeur d'une vraie institution viennoise, à savoir le soi-disant KOSTÜMHAUS, une location de costumes et l'atelier qui produit des costumes pour de nombreuses productions de théâtre et de cinéma. Voilà donc qu'il y a quelques mois, les responsables du Kostümhaus ont cherché une solution pour optimiser les capacités de leur atelier en développant un produit relativement facile à coudre. C'est ainsi que le sac de la marque récemment inaugurée WIEN ZWOELF a vu la lumière du jour, et je trouve que c'est effectivement une solution tout à fait remarquable, à cause des matériaux utilisés (un mélange durable-non durable), et à cause de certaines fonctions comme le "sac en plastique" inclus, fait du tissu d'un parachute recyclé et qui peut être déplié une fois qu'on en a besoin pour ranger les articles qu'on achète dans le supermarché à la fin d'une journée de travail - formidable, n'est-ce pas ? ...

the idea was to optimise the capacitites of the Kostümhaus workshop

... qualche giorno fa sono andato a parlare con il direttore di una vera istituzione viennese, il cosiddetto Kostümhaus che è metà locazione di costumi e bottega dove vengono prodotti i costumi per film e opere teatrali. Per migliorare l'efficienza della bottega, si cercava dunque d'introdurre un prodotto del Kostümhaus stesso. Perciò è stato lanciato il marchio Wien Zwölf qualche mese fa, e poi è anche stato introdotto una molto robusta e funzionale borsa che convince (secondo me), tra altre cose, con un dettaglio doppiamente durabile: un sacchetto di plastica (fatto del tessuto di un paracadute riciclato però...) nascosto nell'interno della borsa che si spiega facilmente e dove spariscono velocemente gli articoli comprati in supermercato alla fine di una lunga giornata di lavoro. Una bella idea, vero? ...

all images courtesy of Wien Zwölf