FEATURE STORIES

Made by Markus

“I don’t have any goals anymore. Or rather, I did have goals. But I’ve already surpassed them.”

It sounds confident, but Markus Richtmann is plagued by recurring doubts about whether what he’s doing is really sustainable.

Markus picks up a camouflage-patterned leather bag and slowly turns it over in his hands. It’s a model he calls the “mailman bag.”

“When I see it on the right person, I suddenly realize just how good it can be. That’s when something clicks.”

His brand is called Richtmann, but he himself lives in two professional worlds as an entrepreneur, though in different ways they both point in the same direction. He spends half his time here in the garage, surrounded by leather in all its colors, the press machine, and seams that must be perfectly aligned. The other half he spends at the restaurant Stadskällaren, where he still has a hand in both the menus and the operations.

“I like to learn things in depth. That’s both my strength and my problem. Once I start something, I get completely absorbed in it, and then the standards I set for myself grow.”

You can tell when he’s working. The bar is set high—sometimes too high. It’s not enough for a bag to function; it also has to feel right. And when things go quiet in his inbox for a while, doubt creeps in quickly, even though he knows the demand is there.

“Then I immediately think it’s not good enough—that’s just how I work.”

As we all know, everything has to start somewhere. For Markus, it was when a friend wanted a cardholder. Markus sewed one and was paid forty kronor. Then someone else wanted a bag, and then another person. The orders kept coming, and when he was named a Design Talent 2025 at Formex, he dared to take the next step. He bought a better sewing machine and started thinking about how he would showcase his work on a website.

“Small things, but every step made it feel a little more real to me personally.”

In the spring of 2025, he made a bigger decision. The basement of the house was no longer enough, so the garage was converted into a workshop. The floor was poured, the walls were insulated, and the interior was built on site.

“I had to give it a try. There was a market, people liked the stuff, and I could charge for it. So, of course, you have to see how far it can go.”

Sales really took off around Christmas last year.

“It exceeded all my expectations. All of a sudden, orders started coming in from places I’d never even considered.”

Who are your customers?

– They all have their own reasons for giving someone a gift made by hand in a garage in Skellefteå. Some want to give a personal item. Others appreciate the design and materials. Still others want to wear an accessory that isn’t mass-produced.

– It’s so much fun to sell a bag to a city, because then more orders might suddenly start coming in after a while. That means someone has obviously seen the bag and liked it.

A clear shift came when the bags ended up in the right sales locations. First at the prestigious Artipelag on Värmdö, where they were featured in the museum’s design shop.

– The first time I saw my stuff in there, it was as if everything had taken on a new form. People stopped and looked. That’s when I felt that it wasn’t just something I was doing at home anymore.

Then a full spread was published in the SAS magazine Scanmag.

It created a ripple effect.

During the same period, new opportunities also began to open up internationally. In January 2026, he was once again selected for Design Talents at Formex, and shortly thereafter came another invitation—this time from bag designer Emily Blumenthal, who invited him to exhibit in New York.

“It’s a big deal, of course. But also a little surreal. I mostly try to keep working the same way and let things take the time they need.”

Markus laughs as he describes himself as a sort of workaholic.

“I constantly need something new to sink my teeth into. I can stand here for fourteen hours rebuilding something without noticing the time passing.”

“The fun part of being a chef is being right in the middle of service. Now I just do it in smaller doses. I’m in for a few hours and cook what needs to be cooked; the rest is administration.”

Instead, he spends more time on the bags, and of course his creations can also be found at the Ingmar interior design store in his hometown of Skellefteå, but the next step is to find more retailers.

– The market is further south. Copenhagen, Stockholm, Spain. That’s where things are heading now.

He also talks about the freedom of being an entrepreneur.

“I want to be able to go hunting in the fall and work hard the rest of the year. I’m fifty years old, after all. You can’t keep going forever and expect your body to keep up.”

He picks up a new bag and runs his fingers over the seam.

“I’m actually surprised that I can do this. Not many people do it this way. For me, it’s about how function and form go hand in hand. The design is, of course, what you see first, but it’s the craftsmanship that determines whether it holds up.”

The garage in Norrböle is far from feeling like a factory, but this is where the bags begin their journey.

– When the right person carries my stuff, something happens. That’s when I know why I’m sitting here.