HERSCHEL TECHNICAL SNOW BACKPACKS F/W 2025/26 PREVIEW

Retail Buyers Guide: Technical Snow Backpacks F/W 2025/26 Retail Buyer’s Guide
Brand: Herschel
Interviewee: Adam Mansell, VP International

Which technical snowpacks sold best in the winter 2023/24 and why?
We have just launched our Herschel Outdoor Equipment range, it is early days but sell through so far is looking positive. At a wholesale level, our new All Season Backpack 29L has sold best. It’s a technical but stylish backpack which features everything you need – it has a built-in hydration system, removable waist and sternum strap, and a rescue whistle should you find yourself stuck on the slopes. The bag keeps you organized, with an internal tool organization system, a floating top pocket for easy but safe access to your delicate belongings, along with a removable compression system to be able to easily attach your gear. The zippered closures have a Prusik cord as well to ensure easy access even with gloves on. It is made with our all season fabric and liner, made from 100% recycled polyester – which is an essential for any customer. It’s a stylish backpack, and the removable waist and sternum strap allows customers to take it on the slopes, but it also wouldn’t look out of place commuting in the city. With the cost of living crisis, customers are really desiring a backpack which serves both their everyday and mountaineering needs.

Are you feeling the impact of climate challenges (unpredictable conditions, snow at higher altitudes, more expensive costs) on your product demand and development?
A warmer than average winter last year was a challenge for our sales teams whilst they presented a complete new range to overstocked accounts. However, we had some great wins – although Herschel is new to the outdoors space, we are a trusted brand within the accessories category – and have a reputation for great quality and design, with a trusted lifetime warranty.

What are the technical highlights in construction and materials of your 2025/26 collection?
One of the standout parts of our All Season range within our Herschel Outdoors Equipment line is the modular connection system – it frees up your hands whilst travelling, as our all season duffles can be connected to our Hybrid Roller cases, or our snow rollers. Our all season range features ten versatile and multifunctional styles – from our all season backpacks, to totes to snow rollers. The fabric is a custom wind-resistant, water repellent All Season fabric made from 100% recycled polyester. The All Season backpack has some great features – The 29L backpack has removable gear straps which can be used for attaching a snowboard, skis, snowshoes or poles. This makes the effort of hiking, or on the slopes ergonomically easier. It also has a floating top pocket, to allow you to easily stash and change your second set of lenses for varying weather conditions. The bag has power mesh pockets on both sides for secondary storage, allowing you to easily store collapsible ski poles, small tripods or water bottles. In addition, it features a removable waist strap and rescue whistle, which is attached with Velcro behind the EVA-padded air channel mapping back, for the consumer to transform their pack into a more casual daypack when not in the mountains. And finally, it is compatible with standard hydration systems, with a small overlapping slit at the top of the back panel to feed the tube from a hydaration system out towards the shoulder straps.

What color palettes, prints or patterns are you featuring in your 2025/26 collection?
For S2 25, we see the introduction of ash rose to our Herschel Outdoors Equipment range. This is a core colour in our mainline collection, and performs well within the female sector. It’s a sophisticated light pink with grey undertones. We introduced this in Outdoors as we often found a lot of backpacks in the snow sector were in dark, safe colourways – and there was a lack of feminine colours. In addition, following the success of our moonbeam colourway in our mainline collection, we’ve introduced this off-white colour to our Herschel Outdoors Equipment collection for S3 25. It’s a clean colourway, off set with contrasting black straps.

Which technical snowpacks do you expect the most growth from in 2025/2026 and why?
We expect to see growth in our All Season backpacks, with customers wanting a multifunctional bag to take them from the city to the slopes. For this reason, we are also expecting to see growth in our new Ultralight collection. This is an all-new range made with a utilitarian mountain aesthetic, with functional features and a lightweight ripstop fabric. Our 22L Ultralight backpack weighs just 12.3 ounces, but is packed with features including a built-in hydration system, a removable waist and sternum strap, as well as a rescue whistle. It’s designed for hiking, but has similar design qualities to our classic backpacks – meaning it caters to outdoor enthusiasts, but also the trend-concious consumer due to it’s outdoors & streetwear inspired design. It’s an affordable price point, with the 22L at £85 GBP (90 Euro).

How are you implementing sustainability in your products and production processes?
In our outdoors range, our All Season fabric is made from 100% recycled polyester. Whilst our ultralight collection is made with 100% recycled polyester liner. We stand behind the quality of our products which are built to last. So much so, that we offer a lifetime warranty on all bags and suitcases.

What are your marketing stories for 2025/26?
Our Herschel Outdoors Equipment range remains an always on, key story for the entirty of 2025. We kick off with a focused snow campaign with Arthur Longo to introduce our All season range. In Spring, our attention focuses to newness in our Herschel Outdoors collection, which consists of surfboard sleeves and travel bags, and the introduction of dry bags into the collection. Back to school remains a key focus for us as a business in Q3, with a 6 week supporting campaign.

How are you helping retailers to sell this category?
We partnered with Arthur Longo, who has fronted the launch of our campaign, and was involved in the development of the product also. Having the backing of such a well respected rider, who has been testing the product out for a number of years before launching into market, has allowed us to gain trust and confidence from consumers in a complete new territory for Herschel. As standard, we always provide retailers with campaign stills and videos, POS (this includes campaign POS and a features and benefits POS), staff training documents and VM props. For the Outdoors launch, we have also offered retailers product to gift their team riders and store teams in order for them to be able to try out the product and confidently be able to talk about it. We’ve also been proud to sponsor DUSTBOX new film, Spirit. DUSTBOX is a group of friends from Utah, USA, who travel the world filming street snowboarding videos. They’ve watched each other grow up while experiencing new countries and cultures together. Their mission is to inspire others to follow their passions and make memories along the way. We’re passionate about supporting artist projects, and snowboarding is second nature to a lot of the team based in our HQ in Vancouver.

Key Products:

36L Backpack: We introduce our new All Season Pro 36L backpack in S3 25. It includes multi-purpose utility straps for gear attachment and a spacious dual-access main compartment. Packed with safety features, it includes a convenient strap pocket to fit most standard sized rescue radios and GPS devices, a sternum strap with a rescue whistle and a front compartment with integrated sleeves for safety tools.

36L backpack.jpeg

Hybrid Roller Bags: Our all season hybrid roller bags are an integral part of our collection, the hardshell is made from 70% recycled road barricade, whilst the liner is made from 100% recycled polyester. It’s all terrain wheels make it the perfect luggage for mountain escapes – and can be easily wheeled across various terrains. Most importantly, it’s a modular connection system that can connect our all season duffles, or snowroller bags – allowing you to haul multiple bags in one hand.

Hybrid Roller Bags

22L Ultralight Backpack: Our 22L Ultralight backpack weighs just 12.3 ounces, but is packed with features including a built-in hydration system, a removable waist and sternum strap, as well as a rescue whistle. It’s designed for hiking, but has similar design qualities to our classic backpacks – meaning it caters to outdoor enthusiasts, but also the trend-concious consumer due to it’s outdoors & streetwear inspired design. It’s an affordable price point, with the 22L at £85.

22L Ultralight Backpack

Snow Roller Bag: And finally, our Snow Roller Bag, constructed with All Season Fabric, features all terrain wheels and a water-resistant tarpaulin liner. It has a main compartment with two-way lockable zipper, and branded back rails to prevent tears and scratches. To keep your skis or snowboards safe, it has an internal compression strap and Bluetooth tracker compartment. It’s part of the modular connection system, meaning it can seamlessly connect to our All Season Hybrid Roller Bag or All Season Duffle

Snow Roller Bag