Our story
Our story
In 2013, Melinda came home to Budapest after spending six months in Madrid at a design studio to her very much missed whippet boy, full of ideas of a collar inspired by the Bauhaus movement. Her greatest influence was Anni Albers. She was fascinated by spanish leatherwork, but wanted to create something entirely modern for Habók, her pup.
She had to start from scratch since she had experience in designing furniture, but leather was a whole new world for her. With the help of her leather-expert friends and a long process of trial and error the Bauhaus Collection was born, bringing MADZAG to life.
The collection became a hit. It was even featured in Design Milk and here we are, 7 years and 7 collections later, still making collars, leashes and other beautiful dog-related objects. Her vision of a lifestyle brand is ever so strong.
in 2015 Melinda asked Karolina Kárász if she would join in with her fantastic photography skills creating a blog that pictures responsible urban dog keepers in Budapest.
The blog focuses on our responsibilities as part of the society, dealing with questions like adopting a dog, socializing, handling difficult situations and of course most of all– the joy of having a four-legged companion in our lives.
The blog teaches us that our community is diverse, but we still have common valies. In addition to showing respect to fellow citizens and dog owners, we have to take responsibility for that living creature whose life is entirely in our hands. We make a statement by keeping our dog on leash and always having some waste bag with us (in a pretty bagpouch).
Melinda takes pride in building a small, female- led business, supporting other small, female-led businesses.
On our products
We believe in slow design: we make everything by hand. Our leather products are created in our studio in Budapest. Working with leather is a never-ending learning curve and even after having 7 years of experience, we are thankful for being able to learn.
We believe in social design: Our beds and pillows are made in Miskolc, by the lovely people of MAACRAFT- the social workshop, so shopping our MÖKKI collection is supporting these young people living with autism. The textile products are made by Tű, Cérna, Szeretet by seamstresses with reduced capacity to work.
Our ceramics are created in a local manufactury by the most esteemed craftsman.
We use full-grain premium italian leather and high quality italian metal parts to give our products a long lifetime.
Our collars and leashes have a natural vegetable tanned leather “core” that progresses through time and develops a patina of dark caramel color.
For the outer part, we use deadstock italian leather, this is why we often face the challenges of running out of a specific colour. But we prefer it this way- this is the more conscious choice. On care and cleaning read our blog post.
If you are wondering, deadstock is the leftover leather from agricultural or manufacturing production. It is a step forward to eliminate production waste.
We use leather because this proved to be the best material choice for us: it breathes, it is durable and hard-working. It is aging beautifully, bearing the marks of every adventure you go on together.
Also an advanatage of leather: our products can be repaired, re-stitched, metal parts can be changed if needed. Many of you already contact us for repairs after years of everyday use, we are glad to fix our old products! Get in touch with us.
If you share our values, join the pack!
#madzagpack and #urbandogkeeping
Melinda (our designer) and Habók (a very good boy)
