This adventure started with the material. In one of our many fabric hunts we stumbled across something very different, almost alien. Insanely lightweight, fully waterproof and many times stronger than steel. Technically it's called nonwoven Dyneema, and we knew when we saw it we would have to do something with it. We just didn't know what.
When we encountered the elegantly pared back nonwoven Dyneema packs of
Hyperlite Mountain Gear we knew we had to do something with them. We became one of their very first customers and then started about what we could make together. The result is the Minimal Backpack.
The premise was simple; what was the simplest and lightest pack we could make that was still suitable for daily use? Nonwoven Dyneema is an insanely expensive material, even by Outlier standards. It's also extremely difficult to sew, so producing a simple yet highly functional design is crucial to making this stuff work. Thankfully Mike St. Pierre of Hyperlite has been working with the material over the past few years and has even built a small factory in Biddeford Maine. By the time Outlier got involved most of the hard work was done. We met up with Mike out in Utah this past summer and swiftly came up with a plan to birth the Minimal Backpack. A roll top backpack, that's waterproof and packs down to fit into a jacket pocket.
