My Fjällräven backpack lasted less than three years

In November 2023, I bought a Fjällräven Räven 28 backpack. It replaced a backpack I had inherited from my dad, which was disintegrating after over 15 years of use.

Picture of my orange Fjällräven Räven 28 backpack.

I paid 139€ for the Räven. I was deliberately paying extra, because I wanted something that could again last for 10+ years, and Fjällräven was a brand I trusted. Overall, the Räven has a very nice design. It looks good, and it has a lot of pockets, which I appreciate. My biggest complaint is that it feels surprisingly small for a 28 liter backpack. The Kånken, Fjällräven’s most famous backpack, feels more spacious than it looks (something I’ve noticed myself and also heard from others), but the Räven is kind of the opposite. I often struggle to fit my groceries in it.

Anyway, after less than three years of normal daily use, the bottom of my Räven looks like this:

Picture showing the bottom of the backpack that has been worn out.

To me, it’s pretty clear that this mesh material rubbing against my back is a weak spot and would wear out easily over time. My notes actually show that I was already thinking about fixing my backpack in October 2025, less than two years after purchase! You could say that I must be doing something wrong to have worn it out this quickly, but I’m clearly not the only one with this problem. A friend of mine bought a Räven secondhand, and the previous owner had added a leather patch to the bottom. With a very brief search, I also found a review in this online shop saying that the bottom had worn out.

I got concerned about this wear, so I took the backpack to an official store, and they sent it to the factory for assessment. [I bought the backpack while I was living in Finland. The Finnish page on repair doesn’t say anything about a repair service, but the page for Japan (where I live now) mentions that they can do repairs at “standard rates”.] After a couple of weeks, they called me to say that the repair would cost ¥17 000 (95€ at September 2026 rates), while a new Räven would be ¥20 400 (114€), so they suggested I just buy a new one. [On the Finnish website the price is the same 139€ I paid in 2023.] But Fjällräven’s marketing is all about sustainability, and that’s also why I wanted to repair my backpack instead of replacing it.⁠ [Also, the currently available colors are very muted and boring, there’s nothing bright like my current orange one. (At least it was bright when it was new.)] Even so, I found this price to be too high, so I declined and waited two more weeks for them to ship it back.

After this, I went around Tokyo looking for repair shops. I visited four different shoe and bag repair stores such as Mister Minit or リアット (Riat), asking them to add a leather patch inspired by my friend’s secondhand backpack. The first three quoted prices ranging from ¥16 500 to ¥23 000, the fourth one sent it for assessment and told me a week later that it would be ¥40 000. Cool. I was willing to pay around ¥10 000, but not much more than that.

I will be looking for a backpack from a different manufacturer. It will have to be something other than JanSport, Eastpak, Timberland, or The North Face, though, since they are nowadays owned by a single company that had over 55% market share of backpacks sold in the US in 2015. [I tried to look for a newer figure but couldn’t really find anything without a paywall.] I wish we could have nice things.