UTW Bags

Founded by Anaïs Fritzlan in 2000 out of a small apartment in Amsterdam, continued in downtown Toronto from 2001 to 2011, now situated in the beautiful countryside of Tay Valley. The work of UTW is done by Anaïs herself and since 2004 her husband Dennis who is called Sam by many of his friends especially his messenger friends. What began as a fun design challenge of a big messenger bag, a standard

messenger bag and a messenger hip pouch expanded into a full line of 24 messenger and cycling specific products and many new designs not cycling specific including purses, diaper bags, wallets and more. They still make bike messenger specific bags for their core patrons but anyone can appreciate any of their creations. Designing and making is the most fun for these two. Often they are asked to design and create special items specific to the customer and to prototype products that patrons or fans have devised. These have ranged from practical things like specially outfitted laptop bags and accessories to wild things like polo mallet quivers that hold mallets and balls but also act as goalposts during play. Aside from designing and making the bags, accessories and clothing themselves, both Anaïs and Sam enjoy decorating their creations for their patrons. Using a combination of embroidery and applique Anaïs has put beautiful images on hundreds of her patrons bags with great mastery. Anaïs also created all of the images on the t-shirts they hand screen in the workshop, drawn freehand in her sketchbook before being selected to go onto the shirts or bags. All imagery on bags is done in-house unless the image is a commercial image to be repeated on many bags. In that instance they are machine embroidered because the embroidery/applique process is time-consuming and repetition is no fun. Enjoy the pictures and updates and feel free to tag photos if you recognize a friend. Visit http://www.utwbags.com to see more.