Journal

Buying a canvas backpack is easier than buying any other kind, because canvas does most of the deciding for you. It is tougher than nylon, lighter and friendlier than all-leather, and it improves with age instead of sagging. The mistakes people make are not about the fabric; they are about fit and size. This guide walks through how a rucksaBackpacksck should sit,...

Some men are easy to buy for and some are not. The not-easy ones tend to share one trait: they claim to need nothing, and they mean it. A bag gets past that answer because almost every man carries one every day, and very few of them own one that is actually good. Waxed canvas and leather make it a better gift...

The three fabrics most bag-buyers confuse Canvas, cotton and nylon are not the same material, but most bag product pages use them as if they were. The reason is simple: "canvas" is a weave, "cotton" is a fibre, and "nylon" is a polymer. A bag can be cotton canvas, a bag can be polyester canvas, a bag can be nylon in any...

The commuter bag and the British morning A commuter bag is not the bag you take on a city break. It is the bag you take from your front door to the platform, the platform to the office, the office to the platform, the platform home, every working day, for three to five years. The bag that survives that is a small...

The weekend bag and the three-night trip A city break is the trip your bag is sized for. Two nights, three nights, sometimes four. Anything longer and the math changes; for one to four nights a canvas and leather weekender or a canvas and leather holdall covers it without a suitcase. Both bags live or die on whether the trip feels easy on day two, when...

Full-grain leather is one of the toughest materials you can carry. It shrugs off decades of daily use and looks better the whole time, provided you learn a short list of habits. This guide covers what full-grain means, the daily routine, cleaning and conditioning, and what to do when rain, mould or a broken zip turns up. Full-grain leather: what the term...