Journal

How to break in a full-grain leather bag without ruining it A new full-grain leather bag is stiff on purpose. The fibres are tight, the surface is even, and the bag holds its shape on the shelf. The first six weeks of use decide whether the leather softens the right way (a soft, even patina, darkening where your hand rests, creasing where...

A short history of the British holdall The British holdall did not arrive as a fashion item. It arrived as a piece of working kit, the bag a doctor or a commercial traveller threw into the back of a carriage for two nights, and it evolved into the weekend travel bag almost by accident. The shape and the name stuck because the...

What is a weekender bag? A weekender is the bag sized for two to four nights away. Big enough to skip a suitcase, small enough to carry down a station platform without a taxi on the other end. The shape is wide, soft-sided, opens down the middle like a book, and sits upright on its own when you set it down. Most...

A Wether and Hide bag is not built to be the lightest, the cheapest, or the most fashion-led option on the shelf. It is built to survive a British commute and a British weekend away, and to look better at the end of both than it did at the start. That single decision drives almost every choice below: why the shell is...

Are Canvas Backpacks Good for Daily Commuting? Yes, with two caveats. The canvas has to be the heavyweight, waxed kind; and the straps and base have to be cut from something tougher than the panel. A pure canvas backpack with cotton webbing straps is fine for a gym bag, not for a 13 inch laptop in a British winter. A hybrid canvas...

Messenger Bag or Backpack: Which Should You Carry to Work? The honest answer is that neither is universally better. The right one for you depends on what your Monday morning actually looks like: how you get to the platform, how much you carry, whether your back or your shoulder is the weak link, and whether the British weather has agreed to behave...