Tote Series for !SSUE
For our collaboration with !SSUE, we wanted a bag you could keep for a long time. Something ordinary, in the good sense of the word. It is made from soft plastic that already existed, waste that was waiting to become something again. The form is simple because the life it is meant for is simple. You carry it every day, you fill it, you set it down. After many years it should still be there, unremarkable and useful.
Year
2026
Sector
Lifestyle
Disciplines
Industrial Design
Design For Manufacture
Sustainability
Art Direction
Material
Recycled PET
A Bag Made of Bags
Each tote weighs 350 grams. Most of that weight is soft plastic, the same film that arrives as shipping mailers and packaging and usually ends its life in landfill within a day. We collect it, clean it, and rebuild it into something meant to last years instead of minutes. One tote holds roughly fifty shipping bags' worth of reclaimed plastic. The figure is not a slogan. It is a measurement, and it is the reason the bag exists.
Photograph: Josh Teoh
The Material
The surface comes from collected plastic, whatever was gathered in a given month. We did not try to correct it. The older plastic is darker, a little brittle. The newer plastic holds its colour. These differences stay visible. There are three families, Offcut Black, Offcut Earth, Offcut Mono, but no two bags are quite the same. Each one keeps the memory of the material it was made from.
The Rope
The handle is a climbing rope, from Camp5, a few streets away in Kuala Lumpur. We liked that it was already designed for weight and for time. It holds the load without strain. Against the matte surface of the plastic it brings a different texture, a different tension. It is not there for decoration. It is there because it works, and because it is honest about what it is.
The Making
The construction borrows from fishing gear, where things must simply hold. The base is reinforced where the weight gathers. The seams are sewn more than once, and we left the stitching visible. The zip is a recovered YKK. The plastic is treated so the rain does not wear it down. Nothing is hidden. The way it is made is also the way it looks.
Made Locally
The Bungkus Tote Bag is proudly designed and manufactured in Malaysia. Every stage of development, from material sourcing and prototyping to production and assembly, was carried out locally through close collaboration between designers, engineers, and manufacturing partners.
Local production allows for greater control over quality while reducing transportation requirements within the supply chain. It also supports the growth of Malaysian expertise in sustainable manufacturing and product innovation.
The project demonstrates how locally developed solutions can address global challenges, creating products that are rooted in place while speaking to a broader conversation about circular design.
Project Owner: Ken Jin Chua
Design Analyst: Jayce Izumi
Junior Designer: Éloïse Prevost
Head of Design & Production: Mio Miyasaka
Creative Director: François Hurtaud