My favorite travel bag setup is based on the Eagle Creek Migrate Wheeled Duffel. It’s 110 liters and I stuff it with their excellent Pack-It system of packing cubes and shoe organizers. The duffel is weather resistant, the shoe organizers can keep filthy shoes away from clean clothes, the packing cubes are tough and can protect electronics, and some of the clothes dividers have mesh letting sweaty clothes breathe after a little adventure trip.
I absolutely love the setup, as I have every Eagle Creek product I’ve owned. But, alas, the brand is on the chopping block. Has been chopped, in fact. Their parent company, VF Corporation, owner of brands like The North Face, Smartwool, Jansport, and Altra, among many others, recently announced they’re killing off Eagle Creek by the end of 2021.
Why? Continuing the brand “no longer makes strategic or financial sense,” VF Corp’s Craig Hodges, vice president of corporate affairs and communications told Outside Biz Journal. That’s vague, but it’s easy to imagine Covid’s decimation of the travel industry last year, continuing into this year, playing a part. Surely, travel will come roaring back at some point, but with that point being more of a murky haze in the distance rather than a known date, operating a travel company probably does make little financial sense if you own a bunch of other brands too.
As owners of Eastpak and Jansport, maybe they also simply figured Eagle Creek was one bag brand too many, but, for my money, it was easily the best of the travel pack companies out there.
They’ve been around for nearly 50 years, quietly making some of the most useful, if unheralded, gear out there. And definitely some of the most durable. My aunt has a big, Cordura (I think) wheeled duffel that she uses for every trip, and has for over a decade. Every year in Montana for our annual trip to the Gallatin, I meet her at the airport in Bozeman, and wheel her enormous Eagle Creek pack, a patina of years of dusty travels coating it, and the thing just takes it.
The brand was one of the last to offer a no questions asked lifetime warranty too. Their stuff didn’t have the eye candy appeal of some of Patagonia’s luggage products, and was probably overlooked by many in the outdoor world because it wasn’t “cool,” but hardened, dedicated travelers knew. Eagle Creek was the real deal.
Some of the staff will be absorbed into other VF brands, others will be let go. I will now see if I can make my Migrate duffel last another 20 years or so, and I have little reason to doubt it will. It’s built, like everything else Eagle Creek made, like a tank. A comfortable tank, but a tank.
So now’s probably your chance to get your next travel duffel on the cheap, before their inventory is wiped out.
Photo: Eagle Creek
To this Canadian, the big 110 litre wheeled pack looks (a tad) like like a hockey bag. At the rink, it makes a clackety-clack sound as you roll across tiles to the changing room. Among players, I’ve heard it described as a man-purse.
Sorry to see it go.., but not surprised. I’ve owned a lot of Eagle Creek travel and every day bags which are still in use, some after 30+ years. The one thing though is when last I checked the prices were considerably higher and then were other, equally durable, choices available.
Wow, glad I have the 2 EC bags I do. I use them for nearly every trip, and have for a couple of decades. BIFL, RIP.
I was given my 1st Eagle Eagle Creek pack by my dad in 1980. 5 continents and 40+ years later it’s still in the rotation. Sad to see the brand die, but I think it did years before. New stuff-quality wasn’t there, customer service, meh.
Could not agree more – our family moved overseas for work in 2011 and I bought 7 Eagle Creek bags of varying sizes in connection with the move and they are all still going strong – so strong that I don’t really need to buy any more at this point. Maybe they were too goood to be good for business. But the company will be sorely missed when it is gone – there aren’t many other products out there of such consistently good quality.
I have an abundance of Eagle Creek Products. The one that goes on virtually every trip is a small simple 2 compartment + 2 pocket simple backpack that can be also used as a belt pack. I put essentials in it (headphones. water bottle, meds, charging cords, documents, nook, snacks etc) and pull it out of my larger carryon for ready access seatside on flights. No longer waterproof if used as a superlight backpack for hiking/biking but haven’t found a better substitute.
That’s unfortunate news … I got a nice big duffel bag of theirs after an airline destroyed another (much cheaper quality quality) bag, and although one of the metal clips broke on the strap, I’m still happy with it. In fact I just used it today to lug a huge load of laundry to the laundromat.
VF Outdoor….. a.k.a. Vanity Fair a.k.a. The Company That Used To Make Bras. They also own Wrangler and Vans.
As far backpacks, well if you know about what Luxottica are to eyeglasses that’s what these people basically are in controlling the backpack market. Just another reason to buy from independent or semi-independent companies like Kelty or Specialty Defense/Bianco (or both).
The reality is a business built on solid, practical long lasting products with great customer service is no longer a practical and viable business model. There was a recent article here on AJ about warranties, etc. I made a comment about how great my EC Switchback was and their warranty process. I really try not to sound like an old fart, but how can one compete today in a market driven by marketing, flash and hot trends by trying to just make a good, well built product or well designed service? The small population of ‘core’ users appreciate it, but the rank and file weekend warriors who live on their front porch waiting for the next Amazon order just won’t change their buying habits. Not enough margin for some of the good brands to stay around. Especially when you have to make a return to the shareholders. That really is the main driver of the demise. Our fast paced, social media driven, cheap disposable culture has done this. Sad news, but it really makes me more appreciative of the gear I have that is old, but well built and serviceable. Also, FYI, The NF sucks donkey balls now and is nothing more than a fashion brand.
The answer (going forward), is pretty simple.
If you own a company, and give two shits about the brand you built, the employees who busted their butts to help keep it going, (as well as make it what it is *today*), and, you find yourself ready to jump off the working life conveyor belt?
Simply fold. You did well, pat yourself on the back, and walk away.
Or?
Sell it to your employees, but be willing to work with their less than deep pockets, and take payments for the next 20 years, call it a functional retirement income.
Or?
Whore it off to whatever vulture capitalist offers you the most money, and watch your brand get absorbed, morphed, raped, plundered, the employees thrown to the wind, and all your hard work smashed to bits by some wanker with a calculator and a Herman Miller office chair in an office with a view.
If you can’t see that options one or two are far better for your soul, your brand, as well as your diehard customer base, then you’re really no better than all the rest of the corporatist butt rapers that have been plundering our collective awesomeness for marketing purposes for the last 10 to 15 years…..
Dana Designs comes immediately to mind, and I am SO glad I own several products proudly made in Bozeman, by folks who gave a crap and signed their names to the tags. To watch the brand get destroyed, has bothered me to this day….