since 1974

In the spring of 1972, Dan Madden, an instructor at Outward Bound School in North Carolina, came up with an idea while watching a student dragging a backpack.

“Let me make tough backpack that students can use for years using the sewing techniques learned from my grandmother.”

Fortunately, Dan was waring that his students eager to have simple, durable, and timeless backpack as he communicated with them as their instructor. Within few months from production starts, Dan was flooded with orders from Outward Bound schools across the United States.

In 1974, Dan decided to start full-scale commercialization of backpack manufacturing, and leaving North Carolina, then opening his first store in Boulder, Colorado, with his business partner, and friends. That was how the history of MADDEN has begun.

THE REAL THING NEVER BE OBSOLETE

In fact, MADDEN is once in danger of business continuation. In 2003, despite outstanding sales, means more backpacks than the current major outdoor brands in Europe, not only in the United States, Japan has established a position of “knowing to those in the know” through bespoke orders from major select shops. MADDEN has stopped its business. Innovations such as overseas manufacturing and the spread of e-commerce had started in the outdoor industry as well, and after all, MADDEN could not keep the pace with trends that have nothing to do with the quality of the product itself.

However, in 2014, after more than 10 years, MADDEN rebooted. Mike Valvano, who had been with MADDEN since the early 1990s, became the founder and brought together his former friends to restart production. Using the same original pattern, and sewed by the same Colorado craftsmen. The backpacks, are simple, high-quality, and last longer than any others, material and style, nothing have been changed since 1974, have been accepted as the standard and revived.

Yes, no matter what the difficulties, the real thing never be obsolete.

INHERITING COLORADO’s PRIDE

The origin of MADDEN is to produce products in Colorado using materials in the United States. Made in USA’s commitment has confirmed our identity, such as aggressively adopting Bison leather from our hometown of Colorado and INVISTA’s ultra-high-strength nylon “Cordura” from Kansas.

In fact, when our company was reopened in 2014, we even used the former factory of MADDEN in Commerce City, Colorado, and by outsourcing the production to Tina Johnson, former MADDEN product manager, owned the factory, to get the same exact equipment in the passed for manufacturing.

Colorado has a community of knowledgeable and talented craftsman, and above all, most of the MADDEN team was also a local buddies. Once you pick up your MADDEN backpack, look for the mascot character of their softball team, the PACK RATS and the Colorado flag tag. Those are a proof of the playfulness of Colorado craftsmen and the origin of our products, and our proud of genuine backpacks that are different from the art forgery obsessed with design and trends only.