Matrix Pro

Packs That Have Been Up Everest And Come Back.

There is a useful test for a rucksack and it has nothing whatever to do with how it looks in a shop. It is whether anybody has carried one somewhere genuinely unreasonable. Matrix Pro passes rather emphatically: Alar Sikk carried theirs to the summit of Everest, and Andras Kaasik carried theirs up both Everest and K2, which is a considerably higher bar than most bags are ever asked to clear. At eight thousand metres nobody is carrying anything out of loyalty to a label.

Every pack is handmade in Estonia, and the design work happens alongside scientists and working mountaineers rather than in a marketing department. That shows up in all the places that only start to matter after the sixth hour: how the load sits against a back, where the weight goes when you lean, and how the straps behave once you are tired, wet and no longer taking a charitable view of your equipment. There is no cleverness in the branding at all, which is precisely the right way round for something you will wear for eight hours with twenty kilos in it. The same workshop makes Noel, their urban line, for anyone who wants the construction without the summit.

For more for the outdoors, have a browse of our camping and hiking and sport collections, or carry on to bags, backpacks and men's bags. There are more businesses like this one in small batch artisans, and more from across the water in our Baltic brands collection.