PAC Designs Canadian courier bag innovations

When it comes to

cycling bags, function is important. But for Pat McGibbon, whose pac Designs messenger bags and hip pouches have been growing in popularity around the world for more than 20 years, function and form go hand in hand.

McGibbon started working as a bike courier in Toronto in 1985. When an injury took her off the bike in 1989, she started making bags for friends. Her injury, as well as a sewing machine a friend found in a dumpster, was the beginning of something beautiful.

“I’d come to Toronto to go to school for art,” McGibbon says. “When I was a courier, I basically did nothing creative. So once I had this sewing machine, I wasn’t trying to start something. I just made some Christmas presents.”

Eventually, friends wanted to buy her creations, which she eventually started selling as “Pat-Pacs.” A few years later, McGibbon started attending bike messenger championships. In 1996, pac Designs went international when McGibbon set up a booth at a championship in San Francisco. She knew she had something. “I felt like a rock star,” she says. “Everyone was so receptive.”

Working as a courier gave McGibbon insight into the qualities that made a good bag – and to the fact that one wasn’t available. “When I would wear a shoulder bag myself, I wouldn’t find it fast enough to swing around and grab my packages,” she says. “So I came up with ideas to make it swing. And I’d find that when I put a lot of packages in the bag, it would be hard to open the flap, so I made suspension so it would release a little and you could grab the packages out.”

These design innovations by McGibbon have been recognized by those in the know. The website

carryology.

com,

which is dedicated to “better ways to carry,” put PAC Designs in their Hall of Fame. According to site founder Andrew Fallshaw, McGibbon’s influence goes beyond the world of couriering and makes her achievements notable.

“For us, it’s seeing the slow creep of her features across to other bags,” Fallshaw says. “I don’t think many bag designers would realize she originated several small messenger features. I think they would have just noticed a nifty way to do double-D buckles, or that handy stabilizing strap, seen them on a bag or two and borrowed

“I felt like a rock star. Everyone was so

receptive.”

the ideas over to their designs. They are small things, but on such simple bags, they make a difference.”

McGibbon kept taking orders for bags and they eventually became her primary source of income. pac Designs now operates from Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron where McGibbon also manages a bike shop while still doing all the sewing for the company. McGibbon uses minimal marketing and a simple website through which people can contact her to place orders. She sees potential for growth, but may need to outsource production or sell the brand. After a busy season at the bike shop and a lot of energy poured into designing her next project, a cycling specific backpack, the fall holds opportunity.

“I’m looking at changing the way that pac has been doing things because it’s been a bit inefficient,” McGibbon says. “We’re a success in that we have a good name, but I’m not a businesswoman. I’m more of an artist so I’m trying to make the business side work.”

Even if businesswoman wasn’t her goal, McGibbon is grateful for where her creations have led her. “I love what this business has done for me,” she says. ” When I was a bike courier, there was a time when I thought I was wasting my talent even though I rode all day and loved it. Then I was able to come up with these bags and now I can support my two daughters and live in a rural location. I’m pretty thankful for where it’s gotten me.”

opposite top right Pat McGibbon working at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Austin, Texas opposite top left and bottom The Pro Lite Large with X Strap

top David Veilleux of Cap- Rouge, Que., on his way to winning the fi rst stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné in Champéry, Switzerland

right Veilleux in the Critérium du Dauphiné postrace media scrum after winning the fi rst stage and taking the race lead