Lexdray 2012

You might have already seen this new collection from Lexdray being pinged around the net a fair bit last week, and with good reason, there’s a few new pieces, some updated ones and whole bunch of carry goodness. Instead of just throwing up the general press release and images we figured it’d be better to have a chat to the man behind the new range – Mr Alex Drayer himself…

*The Boulder has had an update. What were the changes made? why? 

“Updates to bags are something that I feel are necessary to keep a bag fresh.  I wouldn’t say the new Boulder Pack 2.0 is better than the original, but it does have some new elements.  

Obviously the Boulder 2.0 has a new khaki exterior versus the original all-black version.  We’ve taken out a lot of the internal neoprene pockets and made them nylon.  We’ve also changed all of the zippers except for the two primary ones from a plastic zipper to a reverse nylon zipper.  These two changes have made the bag almost a pound lighter.  

We’ve also added .5″ of depth at the bottom of the bag so there is minimally more internal space for your gear.  The comfort mesh which is against your back is a different material now, but it’s a minor change for no reason other than I thought it looked better.  And lastly, this new Boulder Pack 2.0 has a custom Lexdray camo-printed lining which I designed with my artist.”

—

*The London Garment is great, what was the thought process behind it?

“The main reason I came up with this bag is for the simple fact that I don’t like to unpack on short trips.  That said, I came up with a unique design that has never been seen before.  The beauty of this bag is that it also makes packing easier in that you can hang it in the closet or over a door while packing.  When you arrive at your destination, it can easily be hung up again…unsnap the shelves and be on your way.”

—

*The Sao Sling Camera Pack. what and how much research went into designing this? creating something for photographers is notoriously difficult to get right… 

“The new Sao Paulo Sling is designed for everyone from your professional photographer to the guy or girl who just carries around a small point and shoot.  Yes, it was measured and designed to carry an SLR, lenses and everything else you might take with you for a day in the city, but I configured the dividers on the inside of the bag to lay down should you want to carry something other than camera gear.  I definitely studied a ton of other camera related bags.  Hopefully I got it right.”

—

*You have a diverse range of packs – camera, suit, office, out of home – what do you create your packs based on? consumer demand? holes you see in the market? personal want? or??

“Good question.  There’s always the personal side, but I certainly also take market needs into account as well as just an overall outlook on what makes sense for the brand.  Going forward I have five or so collaboration projects coming up which include a skate pack, DJ pack, camera pack, etc.  Each of these items just fits with our brand dna which is the most important thing at this early stage of Lexdray.”

*Any new materials, challenges, ideas/thoughts with the new collection?

“Honestly I’m just excited to put something new out into the world.”

*What special projects have you got coming out to round out the year? start off 2013?

“We have the sling bag that I designed and produced with Jeff Staple as part of the Kid Robot Black Collection coming out for the holidays.  For next year we have a few colab projects in the works, new styles, new colors for current styles, etc.”

*Last words to about the new collection to share with the Carryology audience?

“We’ve worked hard to produce some new items that represent our brand and done our best to keep costs down while maintaining a consistent level of high quality intelligently designed products.  There are a lot of bag brands out there so we have to do what we can to separate ourselves and there’s no more obvious way do so than with the products we create.  We understand that Carryology readers take their bags as seriously as we do, and we look forward to their feedback on the new line as well as our original collection.”