caribee extreme 35 / a merak sidequest
all this for
a school bag.
a backpack from melbourne’s west. a search that went halfway around the world. and a few people who remembered exactly why it mattered.
01 / the search
melbourne, and a long way back.
everyone had one.
then, apparently, nobody did.
i went looking for the backpack i had in year 10. black nylon, bright piping, a kangaroo on the front. worn so low the straps were practically sweeping the footpath.
at copperfield college in kings park and delahey, all the kids had one. it was the symbol of whether you were “down” or not.
i could remember the bag perfectly. i just couldn’t remember its name. i asked aussie disposals. i searched online. eventually, i asked reddit.
“they were called like ‘caribee 1600’??”
not even close. someone in the comments came through with the name: the caribee extreme 35. finally, something to search for.
caribee opened what was left of the archive. a former aussie disposals buyer remembered the bag, but wasn’t optimistic i’d find one. by this point, finding an old school bag had become a project.
the pakistan connection.
a hong kong listing looked promising. u/YehWright checked it, recognised a false lead and traced the photographs back to a listing in china. he then put me in touch with u/Mr_Dar242 in pakistan.
dar helped arrange the purchase and postage of the brand new blue and black extreme 35. somehow, between people in different countries who owed me absolutely nothing, that bag made it back to melbourne.
separately, my friend pete went through his parents’ garage and found his old red and green extreme 35. two bags: the brand new blue and black one from overseas, and pete’s red one from the garage. of course.
all this for the bloody school bag i had in year 10.
the hong kong leadsaved listing screenshot
the bag, in moving pictures.
three published reels / @acultureconcept
01 / the search
a wild goose chase.
“probably would’ve been easier if i just woke up to look for my birth certificate. a wild goose chase but really; the pursuit of a beautiful memory.”
02 / the find
at least i got the 35.
“i still haven’t found my birth certificate but at least i got the 35.”
03 / with caribee australia
another thing i don’t need.
“anyone got more of these laying around? i’m thinking of starting to collect another thing i don’t need 🤝”
instagram loads when you choose a reel. the direct links stay available if instagram asks you to sign in.
caribee opened the archive.
catalogue scan, records & correspondence
- 35 litres
- the original catalogue’s capacity
- 11,020
- units in the surviving company table
- 1993
- the largest recorded year: 3,500 units
- victoria
- the market that brought it back
david at caribee confirmed something the comments already suggested: the extreme had a particularly strong following around melbourne. the original even outsold its updated replacement. for a time, caribee carried both the extreme 35 and what they called the “old extreme 35”.
the surviving records describe a national range that ended in 1995, a return for the victorian market in 1997, and availability there until 2004. the factory had since closed. original patterns and much of the printed material were gone.
the surviving stock records1992 to 2003
| year | units | shipments | market |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 300 | 2 | national |
| 1993 | 3,500 | 9 | national |
| 1994 | 2,000 | 6 | national |
| 1995 | 0 | 0 | no recorded shipment |
| 1996 | 0 | 0 | no recorded shipment |
| 1997 | 300 | 1 | victorian metro |
| 1998 | 500 | 1 | victorian metro |
| 1999 | 1,550 | 7 | victorian metro |
| 2000 | 900 | 2 | victorian metro |
| 2001 | 1,520 | 5 | victorian metro |
| 2002 | 300 | 1 | victorian metro |
| 2003 | 150 | 1 | victorian metro |
| total | 11,020 | 35 |
a partial archive, with a few dates still to resolve. david’s email dates the introduction to june 1993, while the table begins in 1992. the blue bag’s photographed label reads 11/2006, later than the last stock in the table. these records are preserved as supplied, rather than forced into a definitive manufacturing timeline.
from the inboxaugust & september 2026
selected correspondence, summarised for the story. short quotations are marked. private contact and delivery details are omitted.
would you ship it to australia?
an email asking about the bag in the hong kong listing, with the screenshot shown above attached. a simple question before the search became considerably less simple.
yes, we remember it.
caribee confirmed the melbourne following, explained how the old and updated versions ran alongside each other, and sent the original catalogue scan.
what was still on file.
the factory was closed, and much of the archive had been recycled. the remaining stock records gave the project its clearest figures: 11,020 units across 35 shipments, with 1993 the biggest year.
the project had grown.
the brand new blue and black bag from overseas and pete’s red garage find were now both part of the story. dean proposed a reel series about the search, the history and the differences between the examples.
let’s see the labels.
caribee asked to see photographs of the bags and their internal labels before confirming their history. they also offered to collaborate on the reels and send a valhalla backpack for comparison.
the red one is an original.
“the Red Extreme is an early version of the Extreme and not a copy.”
after seeing the photographs, david confirmed pete’s red bag as an early original and identified the blue and black colour combination of dean’s overseas find as the last one they made.
follow your creative lead.
caribee left the creative direction to dean and asked to be tagged or included as a collaborator. the third published reel is a collaboration with @caribee_australia.
two bags, up close16 archive photographs
the brand new blue and black bag came from overseas. pete’s old red and green bag came from his parents’ garage. these are the labels, embroidery and hardware photographed for caribee. tap any image to enlarge.
a bit carried away.
personal design experiments / 2026
once i had something to look at, i started making things. a pretend catalogue. stitched letters. a merak version of the backpack i couldn’t stop thinking about.
the original catalogue above is the archive. everything in this section is my own design experiment.
the bag concept & lettering sheettwo studies
05 / the conversation
r/AustralianNostalgia
turns out, it wasn’t just me.
the comments remembered the colourways, the school uniforms, the country road bags and those straps hanging everywhere. one person’s old backpack even lived on as a patch in their dad’s swag.
here are both posts and the comments recovered with them. the original wording stays intact, including the uncertainty, memories and spelling.
Caribee Backpacks in high school22 captured comments
Jeez, long shot here and it may only register to those who went to high school in the west of Melbourne. Remember those Caribee Backpacks? I've searched high and low for THOSE particular ones however, nothing's coming up. They were all black, with a solid colour piping detail around the zippered areas, maybe 3-5 compartments and we'd sometimes wear them one strap across the chest. They were called like 'Caribee 1600'?? Where I was from, we'd buy them from an Aussie Disposals, I've even been back into the few left and asked about this bag but the clerks have no clue what I'm on about. Hopefully here can solve it.
Art line ink and a Carribee backpack.
Raids on the art room storage cabinet
They were definitely the thing where I was in the mid 90s. The brand is still around but they don’t have that same flair
100% They're all tailored for a more sleek and somewhat plain look now
This style was all over Melbourne. Caribee backpack slung over one shoulder, Stussy pants, and a Kathmandu fleece.
Defs one of the variations and evolutions! I don't recall the Kathmandus "back in my day" 😂 For us it was always tailored school slacks with a slit on the inner ankle (hemmed up of course) and the fleece school jumper or P.E jacket. Always a fond memory
Not a countryroad jumper? 😊
I know the ones you're talking about. I went to high school late 90s eastern suburbs. Key accessory was the carabiner clip
I think this is later and is also the day pack attachment from a larger back pack, but i feel this is the style you're talking about? Personally, I always went the pure black
Dang, looks super close! It could've been the next model after that one. I started HS in around 2001, cheers for the response though!
The most popular Caribee bag was the Extreme bag (35L, I think). They came in a bunch of colours. I had a black and blue one. My GF had a black and purple one. Hard to find any info on them!
I actually went to a aussie disposals in melb cbd a few weeks back to just see if anyone knew anything lol. Turns out that the guy I spoke with was a rep back in the day and sold them for 20 years, which was crazy coincidence. He said the same thing, just hard to find, stopped making them shortly after the time I'm talking about. Ah maybe one day I'll come across one again. (And black/purple!! What a colourway!)
The colours I remember were: Black + blue Black + maroon Black + purple Blue + green Black + red (IIRC this was the last one released) Around this time (late 90s for me), it was either a Caribee bag or a Country Road bag, the latter is still made today, which is nuts.
Damn wow! I only recall the blue and the red. Thanks for reigniting this search for me 😂
Guys. I found one.
The band Gerling made these popular in the later 90s
Appreciate that lesson, truly 👌
Caribee Extreme 35L. Mine was black/blue but I remember purple and yellow as well. SOoo hard to find even a photo of one.
100% Got me wanting to dig around for the high school pics where there might be one
👀
Did you buy it?? I might still have mine but I'd have to go digging at my parents. I'll have to remember next time I'm there.
Yes early 2000s they came in red and blue. Everyone had one.
Follow up on Caribee backpack16 captured comments
About six months ago I posted here trying to identify the Caribee backpack every second kid seemed to have at school in Melbourne’s west back in the day. Someone in the comments finally gave me the name: Caribee Extreme 35L. That kicked off a much bigger search than I expected. Caribee confirmed how popular they were around Melbourne, but also told me the original factory had closed years ago and most of the old records, patterns and material were gone. I even randomly met the former Aussie Disposals buyer who remembered them well and basically told me I would probably never find one. Eventually I found one listed through Hong Kong. Reddit user u/YehWright helped me work out that listing was a scam, traced the photos back to the real listing in China, then referred me to u/Mr_Dar242 in Pakistan. Dar helped me actually purchase it, was incredibly flexible with payment and postage, and handled pretty much everything you would want help with when trying to buy something from a marketplace on the other side of the world. So somehow the bag went from China, through Pakistan, and finally back to Melbourne. After all that, I actually found one. A HUGE recommendation for both u/YehWright and u/Mr_Dar242. Wright saved me from a scam and found the real trail, and Dar made the international purchase and shipping possible. All this for the bloody school bag I had in Year 10. I've also taken it upon myself to make something of a documentary that no one asked for about this 😂 It's with thanks to the collabs/ambassadors department over at Caribee who've provided me archival material and information related to the backpack, I'm stoked.
Congrats on tracking one down! You must be chuffed! Can you do the same thing for a Gerling Caribee backpack please lol
Mate you wouldn't believe! I just might have to now you mention it haha
Oh that's such an awesome outcome!
I think i remember seeing my old one from school sitting in the bottom of a closet somewhere. I had a green one and my brother had the blue. Weird how a camping backpack became the bag to have in highschool lol. That and the country road duffle.
A friend of mine has mentioned this exact same thing! 👀
haha yeah a lot of the high-school trends tended to be random and weird now that I think about it. This bag seemed to stick around for a while though because I remember having it in like 96/97 and about 5 years later my younger cousin was still rocking one.
I had a Torrens 20 in that exact colour and I wore it til the nylon disintegrated ! I think what eventually did it in was the sharp corner of one of those enormous 4 ring binders we all had to lug around. It ripped a tiny hole and eventually it just gave up. It was second hand when I got it cos my dad's cool as fk friend who always travelled a lot and brought us back cool souvenirs (& was generally just the most Carmen San Diego cool person I'd ever met at that point) gave it to me cos when I was 12 I dyed my hair pink and she said it would match I still have pink hair, she's still cool as fuck, but the backpack is no more.
I find looking back on stories like yours just so special, also referencing someone as Carmen San Diego cool is even better. I wish you the sanity to not go looking for your high school backpack 😂 and thanks for sharing your story! ❤️
Last night I asked my dad what happened to it in the end - and he said he cut the back of it off and used it to patch a hole in his swag, which is still on the back of his motorbike ready to go. So she lives on 😂😂😂 My favourite school bag as a Year11/12 was a black country road duffle bag, with a backup of one of those pink supre totes. Could carry about 20kg on the run between those , half of which was contraband haha
Around 1990 my school had an "official" (but not compulsory) school backpack, that carried a very noticeable logo of it's brand - "GayPak". And of course any poor kid who's mum actually bought this for him was teased mercilessly.
Jesus. I can see it now
They were at every western suburbs school and every Vietnamese language school on the weekends IYKYK. I recall there was a period where they were back in fashion like early ish mid 00s where they even came back into the shops in Footscray etc. I’m pretty sure they were bootlegs by then.
1000%. Growing up in the St. Albans / Delahey areas. You bet your bottom buck I know haha. Good point about the bootlegs, I wonder if there even were iterations of the caribees. May have to look into it
Omg yes these were still going strong in 05/06 in my western suburbs high school. A couple of shops in Footscray sold them along, along with flared Face Off pants is girls used to wear instead of our uniform. Everyone used to wear the backpack so low and the straps would be dangling everywhere. Terrible for their backs 😂
Definitely strong. The people at Caribee told me that the extreme 35 model in particular, was the greatest seller, particularly within the western suburbs 😂 unreal. I definitely remembered the bags being worn so low, we were such derros hahah, the girls with the face off pants. Omg such memories!
Thank you for all your research 😂 I tried to search them once too, but all I had to go on was 'kangaroo backback' since I never had one, all of my Vietnamese friends did! I actually had a dupe from Dangerfield that was checkered but the exact same style (from my emo phase lol)
38 publicly retrieved comments, captured 15 november 2026. live access to reddit was restricted during compilation, so this snapshot cannot be verified as every current reply. some usernames were not supplied in the retrieved copy. each thread links to reddit for full attribution and the current discussion. commenters’ memories and theories are their own; the company’s later confirmation of the red bag is recorded above.
the people behind the find.
thanks for remembering.
to u/YehWright and u/Mr_Dar242 for following the trail and getting the bag home. to david and the caribee collabs team for opening the archive, answering the questions and backing the reels. to pete for finding his old red and green bag in his parents’ garage. and to everyone who recognised an old school bag and had something to say about it.
original caribee catalogue and company records supplied by caribee / clipper international corporation. project photography, films and mock-ups by dean lambeski unless credited otherwise. the hong kong listing screenshot is retained as a historical reference from the search.
this is a merak project about memory, design and a particularly stubborn search for a backpack.
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