Herschel Supply Relaunches All Their Signature Bags In Eco-Friendly Materials, Co-Founder Jamie Cormack Expands on the Brand’s Future

Herschel Supply has expanded into utilizing sustainable materials with the release of its New Classics. Carrying the past into the future, the new range offers redesigned renditions of the brand’s classic bags and accessories crafted with Herschel’s EcoSystem™ recycled fabric. The Vancouver-based brand is also committed to reducing its environmental impact and has been experimenting with recycled and plant-derived materials for the past four years. The brands Herschel Heritage™ Hardshell Luggage was the first result of the extensive experimentation with recycled materials, having the whole collection crafted from 100% polycarbonate EcoSystem™ Hardshell made from 70% recycled road barrier material. As it looks to the future, Herschel is building a sustainable foundation by utilizing EcoSystem™ material for all of its products.

The New Classics line offers a redesign of 60 past silhouettes from Herschel’s catalog featuring the brand’s signature Little America Backpack and the release of a new Seymour Backpack silhouette. The range of heritage products are offered with eco-friendly upgrades – they’re made from Herschel’s EcoSystem™ 600D polyester fabric alongside liners made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. Throughout the entire range, the classic silhouettes are updated with signature features like padded floating laptop sleeves, EVA-padded shoulder straps and organizers, and expandable water bottle holders are still part of the designs. The New Classics line embodies the sustainable foundation Herschel is creating for its future.

In order to build deeper connections with its loyal community, the travel brand is expanding its touch-points to major cities. In the past year, Herschel added three retail stores to their fleet and will have opened another six by the end of 2023.

To fully explain Herschel Supply’s sustainable efforts and creative direction ahead, we spoke with brand Co-Founder and Managing Director Jamie Cormack about the New Classics line and what it means to become a transparent company.

Herschel is crafted for travelers and seekers who step out of their comfort zone to find new experiences. How does the New Classic Collection serve as a testament to your own curiosity for travel?

I pull all my inspiration from the road. For myself, and I imagine for most people, when you’re traveling you’re trying new things, taking more photos, you do more than you would in your normal life because there’s a return trip home – an expiry date. You always want to get as much out of every trip as you possibly can so it forces you out of your normal routine. When it comes to the bags that you take with you, if I’ve done my job right there’s a place for everything you need so that the act of travel is seamless. We’ve always considered Herschel to be a travel brand, and we only ever build products that we use and love.

The new hardshell luggage that was just released features a polycarbonate material crafted from road barricades. How important to you is it to start utilizing eco friendly and sustainable materials for your bags and accessories?

Sustainable materials are just one part of it. We had to keep our impact strategy at the forefront to make sure our products are set up for the future. There was never a question about it. Maybe there was some hesitation because it’s no small job redesigning our entire core range—over 60 styles in total—, but we knew we had to. Our bag collections have gone from 6%  made with recycled materials to 95%, and there’s still work to do. If we’re not innovating in this space we’re not doing any better than anyone else.

Herschel has become transparent with its energy use and climate journey with yearly impact reports. What was the tipping point for this decision? What were the steps you had to take to progress towards transparency?

Long answer short, it was overdue. It’s always been on our mind, but when you’re implementing new changes to a larger range, it’s hard to do without impacting your current line architecture. The best time to have done this was years ago, the next best time is now. In terms of transparency, our impact journey is not just about conscious products and looking at better materials. We dug into our craftspeople and supply chain, looked at how to better support our creative communities, and whether our company culture is set up to support the direction we’re going in. We brought on third party climate consultants to make sure we weren’t getting in our own way. We’re not perfect, but it’s a journey about doing better. Being transparent about it was just the first step.

The New Classic range is seeing a redesign of classic bags and accessories with an eco friendly and sustainable material upgrade. Why tap into the past, rather than creating something new? How do you view the brand’s evolution from its beginning until now?

We’ve always looked to the past to design for the future. Our design philosophy is to design classic products with a modern twist. When I first designed the Little America, our manufacturers laughed because the bag reminded them of backpacks from the 1900s. It ended up becoming our best selling bag and a style that’s synonymous with our brand. We don’t want to pivot away from who we are. The redesign was not about creating net new, it was about taking the best out of the last 13 years and making it better—better shapes, better feature sets, better fabrications.

The brand looks to be turning its page into a new era with innovative new materials and classic designs. What is the future of Herschel going to look like in the coming years?

I’m not sure if it’s about turning a page. It’s about building off the right foundation. The pandemic gave us a chance to take a step back to make sure we were set up for the future, and to do that we started with why. It was about going back to our roots and what we stand for. This brand excels when people leave their front doors—traveling, going back to school, heading to a festival. We’re finally in a spot where we can go back to enjoying that and we’ve done the work to make the best products for today and tomorrow. Creative freedom has been at the core of what our brand stands for. It’s allowed us to keep innovating while maintaining style, quality, and purpose in everything we bring to market. When it comes to the future, the work we’re doing now is going to give us the foundation to keep building.

You’ve been heavily involved in product design at Herschel, and are now overseeing brand direction. What does creative freedom mean to you? How does it better serve Herschel as a brand?

Creative freedom is woven into everything we do. It’s in the way that we live, design and work. To me, it’s a go anywhere and go often attitude, and it’s been that way since we were kids. My brother and I grew up in a small town called Herschel, Saskatchewan. It’s where three generations of our family are from. It was the type of place with no boundaries – you would ride motorbikes through open fields, take your dad’s truck for a spin on dirt roads, all while probably being too young to do any of it. Growing up in a town like that there were no limits, and that freedom to create and explore became the foundation for the brand. It’s who we were when we started in 2009 and with New Classics it’s a return to that mindset. We’re committed to that outlook in every aspect of our business.

The New Classic Collection ranges from $80 to $110 USD and is available at Herschel’s website