If you’re a fan of RIMOWA’s luggage, their Never Still Nylon Flap Backpack Large ($1,590 / 1 250 €) captures the essence of their design language—typically rendered in aluminum, polycarbonate, or a hybrid of the two—in soft backpack form. How does that design language translate across such different use cases?

The Never Still Nylon Flap Backpack Large (that’s a mouthful) comes in three versions: Leather ($2,190 / 1 800 €), Canvas ($1,750 / 1 450 €), and the Nylon ($1,590 / 1 250 €) discussed here. The design language is unmistakably RIMOWA, from the ribs on the fabric to the logo on the speed buckle and the geographic coordinates on the suitcase attachment sleeve. Even in nylon, the backpack exudes quiet luxury—the material is high-quality, with the palladium-finished hardware and leather accents adding to the impression. The leather version adds $600 (550 €) to the price and 0.4 pounds (0.2 kg) to the weight, but further increases the impression of luxury.

The sustainability of this bag is admirable for its product category. It’s made with ECONYL, regenerated nylon from Italian supplier Aquafil. Feedstock for ECONYL includes items such as discarded fishing nets and old carpets. It’s still synthetic, but gives new life to material that otherwise would have ended up in a landfill.

The Never Still Backpack hits the mark for luxury, brand coherence, and sustainability. Where it misses is in functionality.

The bag is designed, more or less, to be one large undivided space. There’s a thinly padded laptop pocket, two slim pockets for ID cards and the like, a small zippered pocket, and that’s it. This isn’t a bad thing. By avoiding overcrowding the bag with dividers, RIMOWA maximizes interior volume, cuts down on weight, and gives the owner flexibility to use it however it makes sense to them. If you like to organize things yourself (and RIMOWA will happily sell you pouches for that very purpose), or if you like to stuff your pack full of bulky items like clothes, then an undivided space can be a great choice.

The problem comes in the execution of the concept.

The side pockets are inconveniently sized for—well, for pretty much anything. Don’t think of them as useful unless you’ve tested them and you have something you know will fit.

The bag design means that every opening and closing is a two-step process, and every closing is a two-handed job. When opening the bag, you’ll need to undo the speed latch, flip the flap back, then undo the drawstring, which you can theoretically do with one hand. To close it up, you’ll need both hands to tighten the drawstring, and probably both to close the latch. It may not sound like a lot, but it adds up.

I’m a fan of the “one large undivided space” concept, but it can be taken too far. Think of all the things you carry that you’d like to have the extra security of an interior zippered compartment: wallet, passport case, phone, earbuds case, and so on. They probably won’t all fit in the one and only zippered compartment on the Never Still Backpack. Along the same lines, there’s no attachment point for the things some folks carry on tethers, like keychains, EDC (everyday carry) tools, mini-flashlights, and the like.

If you do manage to fit all your valuable or easily misplaced items in the interior zippered pocket, you’ll run into the fundamental problem with the Never Still Backpack. Those ribs, meant to evoke the design of a RIMOWA suitcase? They’re decorative, not functional. There’s no stiffness at all to the ECONYL material. In practice, that means that the moment you add anything to the interior zippered compartment, it will weigh the bag down and cause its top-load opening to collapse in on itself, making loading and unloading a chore.

This backpack is constructed primarily from regenerated nylon, which is admirable. If you’re a fan of RIMOWA’s design language, value the look of quiet luxury, prefer to organize your backpack yourself, and don’t frequently pack and unpack while on the move, the Never Still Flap Backpack could be a good choice. Otherwise, you may find that the design flaws outweigh the appearance.

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