About Christoph and his Knapsack

Christoph Ulrich Seyferth (CUS), who was born into a family of craftspeople, is a self-taught designer. He worked five years for the Czech designer Bořek Šípek. Under his guidance Christoph dealt with several large brands all over the world.

Knowledgeable in an array of traditional and innovative techniques and materials, he soon started his own design studio, working on self-initiated projects and a large number of commissions by companies such as Adidas, Functionals, and Quooker.

Seyferth spends a long time iterating and re-iterating his designs, as opposed to the quick way products are designed and produced nowadays.

He spent nearly ten years to develop Knapsack, a deceivingly simple bag, but with numerous details that show Seyferth’s unrelenting critical mind. His focus is not only pointed at the way Knapsack looks, but also the way Knapsack is being handled. After all, each product asks for a choreography of movement: how to use something, how to carry something, how to live with something.

Literally, Knapsack grows on you, because the bag’s shape follows the user’s contour: A built-in flexible spring steel part closes the bag and bends around the user’s hip and back. In that way the Knapsack fulfils its basic function, and the way its design responds to both anatomy and movement.

The Invention

For a designer the first step starts with assessing a problem, based on past experiences: For instance, CUS parents produced exclusive leather bags in their atelier, he still remembers clearly the customers who returned to their workshop to have their bags repaired, most of the time because the zipper was broken. It took much effort to remove the broken zipper, and to attach a new one. His father hated that job!

When Christoph was 45, he added leather-processing machinery and utensils in his already well-equipped studio. Because of these additions, the ambition took hold to rethink design conventions: CUS wanted to design a bag without zippers or other conventional closure systems. He wanted to re-invent the bag from scratch.