In 2001, longtime friends Jochen and Martin founded Ucon Acrobatics in Berlin. They began by printing T-shirts in a friend’s basement and selling them at skate events. There were no investors, no external owners and no plan to build an international bag brand. There were just two friends, a small collection and the desire to create something of their own.
“Some friends were launching their own basic skate labels, which inspired us,” Jochen remembers. “We began with the classic approach of printing T-shirts in a friend’s basement and selling them at events.”
What started as a two-person project gradually became an international design brand. This is the story of how Ucon Acrobatics became the company we are today: still independent, still owned by our founders and still based in Berlin.
From Skate Apparel to Minimalist Backpacks
The move from clothing to bags was not part of a master plan. It happened gradually, as the brand evolved and Jochen and Martin developed a clearer understanding of what they wanted to create.
“Over time, our brand evolved from skate apparel to streetwear to street fashion, and eventually to accessories,” says Jochen. “Time has gone by incredibly fast.”
Around 2016, we began focusing more closely on backpacks and bags. The shift gave us a clearer direction: to create functional products with a restrained aesthetic for everyday urban life.
Our collections grew, new materials were introduced and our products found their way into stores outside Germany. Today, Ucon Acrobatics bags and backpacks are carried in cities around the world. Berlin remains at the centre of it all. It is where we develop our collections and where our team continues to work today.
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How Function Became the Basis of Our Design
Minimalism was part of Ucon Acrobatics before bags became our focus. It shaped the early clothing collections and later carried over into our approach to bag and backpack design.
“Eye-opening for me as a teenager was seeing the work of graphic designer Otl Aicher and Dieter Rams,” says Martin. “They were a major influence on my decision to study product and graphic design.”
The principles that influenced him then remain part of how we work today. “Design as little as possible” and “form follows function” are still in the DNA of the brand.
For us, minimalism is not simply a visual style. Removing what is unnecessary allows the function of a product to become clearer. It can also help a design remain useful and relevant beyond a single season.
How Artists Helped Shape the Ucon Acrobatics Identity
Our minimalist approach has never meant closing ourselves off from unfamiliar ideas. Collaborations have given us a way to step outside our usual visual language and see our products from a different perspective.
“We see our bags and backpacks as the perfect canvas that is carried on the streets,” says Martin.
Over the years, we have collaborated with artists and designers including Eike König, Fons Hickmann, Studio Feixen, Amber Vittoria and many more. We choose collaborators because their work interests and challenges us, not because it already resembles our own.
Each collaboration introduces a different approach to graphics, colour and composition. This contrast can transform the character of a familiar product without taking away its everyday purpose. Many of these Artist Series pieces are produced in limited quantities, making each project a particular moment in the development of the brand.
How Independence Allowed Us to Grow on Our Own Terms
Jochen and Martin built Ucon Acrobatics without investors or external ownership. This sometimes meant growing more gradually, but it allowed them to retain control over the direction of the company.
As the original two-person project developed into a wider team, that independence continued to shape the way we worked. It gave us the freedom to make decisions with a longer view, even when the easier or more immediately profitable option pointed elsewhere.
“Small companies have the advantage of agility,” says Jochen. “If we think a measure makes sense, we implement it as quickly as possible. There’s no need for months of meetings and feasibility studies.”
Independence has never guaranteed that every decision would be right. Products have been reconsidered, materials have changed and some ideas have been left behind. What it gave us was the ability to respond, adjust and continue in a direction we believed in.
Twenty-five years later, Ucon Acrobatics remains fully independent and founder-owned.
From Recycled Bottles to Recycled Textile Waste
When we began using recycled PET bottles for our backpacks in 2015, many retailers were sceptical. Recycled materials were still unfamiliar to a large part of the industry, and customer awareness was very different from what it is today.
Since then, our understanding of responsible production has continued to develop. Recycled bottles offered an important starting point, but they did not solve the textile industry’s own waste problem.
This led us to explore recycled textiles and materials made from fashion waste. The goal was to keep existing resources in circulation for longer instead of relying on waste from another industry.
The transition involved far more than replacing one fabric with another. Materials, coatings, components and manufacturing processes all had to be reconsidered. Martin spent months working with producers and partners across the supply chain to understand what could be changed and where new solutions were needed.
Functional design and recycled textiles now sit at the heart of what we do. Today, Ucon Acrobatics is a certified B Corp. We are proud of that recognition, but we do not see it as a finish line.
Materials and production methods continue to evolve. Responsibility is not something we can claim once and consider complete. It has to be revisited with every collection and every material decision.
What Twenty-Five Years Have Taught Us
Company histories are often told as though every step led neatly to the next. Ours did not.
Products were created, reconsidered and sometimes abandoned. Materials improved. New colleagues joined the team. Collaborators introduced ideas we would not have reached alone. Retail partners brought the brand to new places, and customers made our products part of their commutes, journeys and ordinary days.
That is how a small independent project started by Jochen and Martin became the company we are today.
Twenty-five years gives us plenty to look back on, but it does not feel like a conclusion. We are still independent, still owned by our founders and still working from Berlin.
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