Drawstring backpacks became popular among high school teens in the United States a few years ago. I noticed that virtually all of the morning students I saw in buses and subway trains had one attached to their backs almost by magic –their nylon straps were thin and hard to detect. At first I thought they were sports bags -many displayed the Nike or Adidas logo- until I realized they did not have enough capacity to fit sports equipment. The bags were used to carry personal items. They were just cool. I soon started seeing plain, unadorned, anonymous-looking drawstring backpacks made of black, navy blue or red nylon without a trace of the Nike logo. It is a fact that teenagers are a volatile group when it comes to marketing. I was convinced that high school teens favored over-the-top, attention-grabbing, trendy personal accessories. The drawstring backpack seemed too minimalist, even fragile-looking for that crowd, although I do agree it is very cool in its extreme economy of means: a simple rectangle with a continuous string that serves both as strap and closing mechanism, attached with simple knots to two grommets at the bottom of the bag. The beauty of the closing mechanism is that it uses the weight of the contents of the backpack as a way to keep the top opening closed. After students got tired of them, drawstring backpacks quickly became a favorite promotional, heavy-logoed item: corporations are always late to cool.
