Bags of style
Canvasco founder, Jan Marc Stührmann, talks conscientious fashion
to Jane Anderson
Long before sustainable fashion began in earnest, Jan Marc Stührmann created one of Germany's most successful recycled bag businesses — almost by accident. Starting an early 2000s company designing websites, before too long, a sailing enthusiasts magazine called Trans Ocean approached him. "It was a really old-fashioned magazine and they asked us if we could give it a fresh new design. Taking on the job, I wondered how people could protect the magazine from getting wet on their sailing boats!"
In true entrepreneurial style, Jan Marc went to a sailmaker in his hometown of Bremen in search of cheap material to create a type of envelope to protect the magazine. "After two or three seasons the sun and the salt water makes sails soft, and the boat won't run fast, which means there is always a lot of old sail material available," said Jan Marc. For the price of a donation to the coffee fund, the sailmaker gave him a lot of old material. He also spotted a big roll of strap with six stripes on it, normally used to unload coffee from boats — each stripe represents one tonne of weight bearing ability. "I talked to the producer of the strap and asked for a sample."
Jan Marc went away and created a strong, comfortable bag out of the repurposed materials. "When I carried it around, many people asked me, 'hey, where did you get that cool bag from?' So I quit my job at the startup to produce these bags. Canvasco was born!"
But how to produce the bags on a bigger scale? Jan Marc heard about Vechta Women's Correctional Facility about 55km from Bremen — with its large sewing workshop making bedsheets for the German military. "I made an appointment there, showed them my bag, and they said yes we can do that. How many do you need?"
Every German newspaper came and told the story. "Creating a lifestyle product that was so popular made these women prisoners really, really proud," says Jan Marc. Canvasco still works with the same prison 20 years later and Jan Marc hopes that the work they do helps to reintegrate them into society, "because they had the feeling they were doing something important."
Another secret weapon in the Canvasco success story is collaboration, creating bags with fritz-kola, Pacha night club and the Vitra Design Museum amongst many others—including 25hours Hotels, where the ethos of a different designer for each hotel lent itself to the individuality of Canvasco bags. "Each 25hours Hotel designer creates a bag with Canvasco," he explains. "For example, in Florence, Italian architect and designer Paola Navone was in charge, and she designed a bag which is in every room. During your stay you can use it or buy it from the shop."
Japanese artist, Yoshi Sislay who decorates the walls of 25hours Hotel Bikini Berlin also created artwork to go on a very cool 'bagpack'. Anyone can visit canvasco.de and customise their own sustainable, washable bag with your initials, your colours, and your design.
"The only problem with our bags is that they last a long, long time!" says Jan Marc. "People who bought the bags 20 years ago still have them. Our target group when we launched were 19-year-olds. Now they are 40 with children!"
Always moving forward, he says, "We just made a big hip bag which you can wear as a cross-over. We always have several things in the pipeline. Right now we are creating a take on the palm leaf shopping bags which people favour on the Mediterranean islands. We buy baskets from Madagascar and put our signature sail material inside and our special striped straps on them. But my favourite remains the urban bag. If you want to go swimming, it's the perfect size for your towel and bathing suit. If you want to go to work, it fits your laptop and books. You can wear it for everything."
