Gregory Day Pack

The Gregory Day Pack is a small backpack shaped like a teardrop: narrow and rounded at the top, wide at the base, and holding 26 litres in a body of nylon. A single zip runs around the main compartment, a smaller zipped pocket cuts diagonally across the front, and both zips carry pulls of natural leather. A grab handle sits at the top, the black square of the Gregory label on the front, and a reinforced base below it.

Its maker began as a hiker's complaint. Wayne Gregory had built his first pack as a Boy Scout and run a small frame-pack firm in the early 1970s; in 1977 he and his wife Suszy founded Gregory Mountain Products in San Diego, on the principle that a pack should be worn, not carried. The company's own history begins in that year, and Gregory says the Day Pack's silhouette has been kept ever since.

The year is the maker's. No independent account dates the first Day Pack, and the company's early fame came from larger packs such as the Cassin. But Gregory has dated the Day Pack itself to 1977 more than once: an anniversary edition was labelled 1977–2007, and for the 40th it made a limited Day Pack 1977, a reproduction of the early version with a quilted back and leather reinforcement.

The details have changed over the decades. The early bag was smaller and plainer; today's has an EVA foam harness, a sternum strap, loops for walking poles and rings for clipping on extra pockets. The shape and the use have not. Samsonite agreed to buy Gregory in 2014, and its best-known packs are now technical hiking models such as the Zulu and Jade, but the Day Pack was kept. Gregory's Korean shop now sells it in its Classic line, under lifestyle rather than outdoor, as a bag for everyday use in the city.