About Us

Materials

U.S. made, 1050 denier, high tenacity ballistic nylon fabric. YKK AquaGuard® water-repellent zippers. Superstrong Japanese Halcyon ripstop fabric. 500 and 1000 denier U.S. Cordura® nylon. Duraflex® and Nexus buckles. Double-plated, U.S. made metal snaphooks. When we can't find what we want, we design it and have it made — like our 250-lb-tested, acetal shoulder strap attachment rings, made for us in Georgia (U.S.A.).

We don't settle for less than the best: if there's a better fabric, a better zipper, a better anything out there, we'll find it. Of course the best materials don't guarantee a great bag: we've been making bags for quite a while, all along paying close attention to which materials work in specific applications and which may look good today but are likely to fail down the road (or trail).

Construction

There's no finer team than our Seattle factory crew. Many of our seamstresses have been sewing backpacks and bags for over 30 years — in fact, we have over 300 collective years of sewing experience in our factory. Tom works closely with the crew on refining the construction of his bags, relying on the crew to alert him to any details of the design or patterning that make cutting or sewing needlessly difficult or inefficient. Tom, Fong, Lisa, and the rest of the crew work as a team, tweaking new designs and refining current designs, adding new machines, binders, tools, cutting saws, and other laborsaving technology to further streamline (and at the same time humanize) our manufacturing process.

Much of the minutiae involved in creating our über-durable bags is so deeply ingrained in us that we often forget to mention it: we finish 100% of the inside seams of our bags; we reinforce critical areas, like where a handle or strap joins the rest of the bag, with multiple bar tacks; all nylon webbing is hot knifed (heat fused) so it won't fray; and though you'll never see it, many crucial panels are overlock stitched prior to being included in the final construction. All to ensure your bag won't give up, ever!

A Variety of Choices,
Lots of Options

We're a small company that behaves like we're a big company: we offer a rather large number of color options in many of our bags. And most of those colors are our own proprietary colors — colors you won't find anywhere else. Plus, you can customize your TOM BIHN bag purchase by choosing which shoulder strap works best for you, which size insert best fits your laptop, which combination of packing cubes will best suit your travel style. Finally, add zippered pouches and color-coded key straps to organize the interior of your TB bag.