The North Face Isabella Backpack 3.0 Review

Whether you’re hiking along the trail over the weekend or trekking to the office each weekday, you want the best daypack that won’t drag you down. And who better to help The North Face design a backpack like that than rock climber Margo Hayes? If you’re unfamiliar, she won the 2016 competition bouldering and the competition lead climbing events at the IFSC Climbing World Youth Championships in Guangzhou, China, so who better to help the company develop a lightweight backpack designed to comfortably fit female body styles with internal organization to carry everything you need, from a laptop to hydration.

However, just because you collaborate with a celebrity on a bag doesn’t mean it’s worth buying, so we put it to the test as a daily driver in and around metro Detroit for two weeks, packing and unpacking it daily. How do the lightweight materials perform when used for day-to-day tasks? Let’s find out.

External Components

First, a few words (Oh, who are we kidding? It’ll be a few paragraphs) about those lightweight materials. We’ve got three different materials scattered around the outside of this 20L bag. The primary fabric is a 300D heathered recycled ripstop polyester with PU coating and a Non-PFC DWR finish for water resistance. The bottom of the bag is a thicker 600D recycled polyester for added durability. It also includes the PU coating and a Non-PFC DWR, as does the front and water bottle pockets, which are 70D washed recycled nylon.

In addition to saving ounces where possible while beefing up durability where necessary, the combination of materials gives the bag a unique aesthetic since the pocket material cuts a diagonal from the taller bottle pocket on the left to the shorter bottle pocket on the right. That means the bottom and primary materials increase proportionally from left to right as the pocket material decreases. Forgive us for any clunkiness; if you check out the pictures of the front of the bag, you’ll get what we mean.

We’re testing the Lunar Stone Dark Heather colorway with Lunar Stone accents, and we love the grayish purple hue because it’s feminine without shouting it from the rooftops and also hides dirt. At the time of this review, you can get it in various other shades, including cream, TNF Black with coral accents, blue, and khaki. The North Face uses creative euphemisms for most colors, but you’ll see what we mean when you click through the options.

Along with sturdy fabrics, the Isabella Backpack 3.0 has durable YKK zippers, most of which have satiny webbing pulls. However, the two main compartment zipper pulls have rubbery plastic ones that are easy to grip. Frankly, all of the zippers are easy to open regardless of pulls, except for one; the front compartment has a one-way zipper that ends inside the taller of the two bottle pockets, so you must reach inside that pocket to open and close the compartment. We used that section daily, and it got old fast, even though we rarely put a bottle inside that pocket, opting to use the shorter one in the hopes of leaving it open for easier access to the compartment. Nevertheless, simply having to reach your fingers down inside to grab the zipper is inconvenient, and we can’t figure out why they didn’t just end the opening an inch higher or make the bottle pocket an inch lower.

Other hardware on the Isabella Backpack 3.0 is from Woojin Hardware, and it works as well as we’d expect (as does the actual functionality of the YKK zippers, to be fair). There’s a shiny webbing carry handle atop the bag, which is comfortable enough to hold despite its lack of padding, and it continues down each side of the bag in a daisy chain of loops where you can attach gear with a carabiner or clip. There are five loops—two on the left leading to the tall bottle pocket and three on the right leading to the short one—where you can connect hand sanitizer, a hat, or anything else you want to carry around outside the bag.

As for carrying the actual bag, it has a rather simple harness system, but that’s OK. It’s a 20L bag made with lightweight materials; we don’t need every bell, whistle, and load lifter known to (wo)man on to make it comfortable.

The back panel has cushiony padding lined with micro mesh reminiscent of your favorite pair of workout leggings, and the shoulder straps are similar. We like that the mesh wraps around the straps near the top because it makes them smooth on bare shoulders. The straps are contoured to wrap nicely around a curvy body and include a sternum strap if you need extra support.

It’s attached differently than we typically see—the buckles connect to straps that wrap around a thin piece of elastic cord, so they can slide anywhere you want, but nothing holds them in place, nor can you remove them. The cord reminds us of hair elastics, and we wonder if its stretch will give out at some point, just as hair ties do. Keep an eye on the usage timeline below to see. A fabric welt covers the elastic cord they slide on, and we never felt the need for the extra support with such a small bag, though we’re sure it could come in handy if you really load it up with a bunch of heavy gear.

Fit Notes

This is a casual bag, even in a darker hue, so it’s great for school, as a personal item bag on the plane, or for hours-long hikes. If your office is business casual, it’ll work fine, but if you wear a power suit, you better find a different bag for daily use.

We find it comfortable to wear when loaded down with daily gear, especially for shorter users. The harness system wraps well around a woman’s curves, which is what it’s meant to do. However, it lacks strap keepers and has a lot of excess left when tightened enough for smaller users, and users with broader shoulders may find that the straps dig into their chest slightly.

Inside The Pack

Now to the meat and potatoes of the review: all the places you can stash your gear.

We’ll start on the front where the heathered polyester ripstop meets the washed recycled nylon. There’s a diagonal zipper running between these two fabrics that opens to a front dump pocket that spans the entire height of the bag. We never stuck anything super tall inside, but there is a lot of space above the zipper to accommodate extra height if you want to. We find it a great place for the gear you want to grab quickly that isn’t super delicate, like our earbuds, tissues, and minimalist wallet. There’s much more space remaining, though, if you want to pack winter gloves, sanitizer, or a travel journal there too.

On either end of that zipper, you’ll find a side pocket perfect for water bottles. As we mentioned above, the one on the left (as you’re looking at the bag) is taller than the one on the right, so it can hold a standard slim water bottle like a Hydro Flask, while the opposite side works better for shorter travel mugs like the Owala SmoothSip. The right side pocket is very shallow, so taller items can tip out, and we like having the deeper option.

Atop the bag, behind the carry handle, is a small quick-access pocket lined with soft fleece material. This pocket is a good place to store your phone and sunglasses. It’s deep enough for both and has independent capacity, so it doesn’t hang down in front of the laptop sleeve like some other bags, which we appreciate.

Next up is the front compartment. We’ve already complained about the zipper opening, so we’ll move on from that and talk about the organization inside. It’s minimal yet still includes a large diagonal slip pocket where you could stow a notebook, a tablet, or an e-reader, with a zipper pocket on its front. This pocket includes a key clip on a leash on the right side, which is convenient. We put a small toiletry kit, a travel pill case, and our keys inside this pocket. However, the super flexible materials tend to work against you here. The bag lacks structure to keep things straight as you’re zipping, unzipping, and filling its interior. We have the same issue with the main compartment.

We’re happy this area opens with dual-headed zippers because it’s much easier to access than the front compartment. Against the back is a softly-lined, padded sleeve that can accommodate up to a 16-inch laptop, and, truthfully, stowing a device here does help stiffen up at least the rear of the bag. We will warn you that it takes some wedging to stow such a large device inside the sleeve, but a 16-inch MacBook Pro definitely fits with headroom to spare. It’s just that it wants to curve in on itself because of the floppy materials and the rounded top of the bag and block the sleeve as you try to slide in a laptop.

That’s it for organization, although there’s plenty of space remaining in the main compartment (and some remaining in the front section) for all the rest of your travel accessories, from a packing cube stuffed with a few outfits to a small cooler packed with your lunch and a packable jacket to carry just in case the weather turns chilly. Because of that, we find it a good size to pack daily, if not the easiest to fill due to the uber-flexible materials. However, if you don’t mind pushing fabric out of the way and like a minimal amount of organization and lightweight materials, this could be a great daypack to add to your collection. It works well for outdoor adventures, casual daily use, and travel, so it might be the Jac(queline)-of-all-trades you’re looking for.