As a kid growing up in Budapest and Belgrade, YKRA’s founder, Balázs Lakatos and his family were frequent hikers, exploring nature in different spots across Eastern Europe. During their travels, Balázs noticed the colorful hiking gear, bright polyester windbreakers, and ski jackets in the forests and mountains they visited, and this defining primary color combination of red-yellow-blue made a lasting impression on him.

The Dutch art movement De Stijl (Dutch for “The Style'') founded in the Netherlands in 1917, was the first to reduce its use of colors to black, white and primary colors. Then came Theo van Doeburg repping the color combinations of RYB (red-yellow-blue). Gaining popularity, this tri-color scheme was particularly important for the color theory of Josef Albers and the Bauhaus movement in the 1920s and ‘30s. Red, Yellow and Blue are primary colors that cannot be mixed from other colors, but from which all other colors can be mixed.  

Theo van Doesburg | Contra-Construction, 1923

Fast forward to the ‘70s, and the tri-color scheme made a comeback on the art, fashion, and sportswear scene—influenced by the artistic lens of  Wassily Kandinsky, and the Hungarian painter and photographer László Moholy-Nagy. 

László Moholy-Nagy | Glass Architecture, cover for "MA (Today), 1922

The visual experience was so strong, that after looking back at family photos, reminiscing on his childhood adventures, and rediscovering the world of Bauhaus, Balázs designed his first backpack, a tri-color one. Fun fact: Our MATRA MINI is still based on this prototype today!