Bag Nerds Are Paying Top Dollar to Buy and Trade These Custom Backpacks
It’s time to move past the messenger bag and get serious about carrying your things.
Top row, from left: Evergoods Civic Panel Loader 24L ($279), Goruck GR2 34L Carryology Kaidan V2.0 ($525). Bottom row: Mission Workshop Rhake ($535), Aer City Pack X-Pac ($175), Peak Design Everyday Backpack ($280).
Photographer: Linda Xiao for Bloomberg Businessweek
In 2008, Jason McCarthy just wanted a backpack. Having served in Iraq for the US Army Special Forces, he needed one that would be rugged and durable, yet wouldn’t look out of place on the uptown 6 train. But he didn’t know where to buy it, so he posted a Craigslist ad in New York seeking a designer. Through it, he found a design team in Bozeman, Montana, and over the next two years, together they designed and prototyped the original GR1 rucksack, a project that evolved into Goruck LLC. Inspired by the harsh conditions during his three military tours, the brand has set as its goal to build a bag that acts as “a bridge between Baghdad and New York City.”
Gorucks start at $150 and can cost as much as $425 for the waxed canvas GR1 Heritage model. American-made, they’re the standard-bearer in the industry, using hard-wearing materials such as military-grade 1000D Cordura and YKK zippers with silent pulls. There’s extra padding on the shoulder straps and around the laptop compartment, which the company calls “bombproof.” It’s all backed by a lifetime repair warranty against any snags and tears from hikes or trips abroad. “We have about 50 employees and $32 million in revenue a year,” McCarthy says, which is a lot of bags (68,000 in 2022, in fact).