I made a choice when I was a student. It was a huge one for me at the time! Do I wear a backpack and feel like a walking locker or a messenger bag and be a little cumbersome? I thought that at least with a messenger bag I could grab snacks easier on my trips between classes, so that was the one for me.
You always feel a little off balance wearing an over-the-shoulder bag. The heavier the bag is, the more you’re having to adjust for it. You might have to swing it pass a door or sling it behind you as you push through tight spots, things you don’t have to do with backpacks. All for the ability to have easy access.
Messenger bags are all about access. With a messengers you get to dive right in! At up to a trot, you can get whatever you need from a messenger bag and slip it right back. You never have to put it down, which has a plethora of benefits over a backpack, safety being one of the biggest. Having to put your bag down means you have to disconnect from it, making it vulnerable to theft and damage. So, I loved wearing a messenger bag when I was going to school.
After a shoulder injury I couldn’t comfortably wear a heavy messenger bag all the time. I looked around for a convertible bag but everything was a messenger bag with extra straps, or a backpack with an extra strap. Everything had 3 straps! I thought that was a ridiculous solution. So much so that I had to do something about it.
Necessity led me to create the bagpack. And it came naturally. My hobbies and going to school made figuring out how to make a backpack and messenger bag organic. If you mated a messenger bag with a climbing anchor you would get a bagpack. With some gear and my old messenger bag, I threw together a crazy hybrid. I carried my homemade messenger bag and backpack hybrid around for years. I even made a nicer one that I would later use when I was out in the real world. It was easy to see that it was a good creation. The system I created made so much sense and was so useful that it wasn’t long before I figured it would be great for other people.
Using it for so long. The bag I used had a unique story. The need for snacks drove me to eventually creating a product that transcends utility and delves into everything from fashion to security. It followed me from student to professional and created a new generation bags that will change a very conventional paradigm.