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It’s time to face the ugly truth. Men are carrying too much stuff.
It came to a head with the glut of oversized bag pictorials in the most recent round of magazines, but this has been a drag on gentlemanly style for years—and no number of murse jokes is going to make it go away. We need a bold step, a moratorium, a line in the sand…
So we’re declaring cargo bankruptcy. For seven days, we won’t carry anything that doesn’t fit in our pockets.
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Oilskin bag labels are popping up as fast as Etsy can host them, but we recently ran across an English brand with an entirely new take on the item: why not make your own?
It looks like this: a pair of straps, a few sheets of treated cloth, and a needle and thread. If you’re already handy (possibly from practicing on buttons), you should have a grocery-ready sack in a matter of minutes. If you’re new to the game, you may want to try your luck on less handsome cloth first, but it’s not brain surgery.
Once you’re done, it’ll end up as one of the more unique items you own. (Let’s hope that’s in a good way.)
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Web boutiques have been popping up like daisies lately, but we’d like to single out a shop called Builtwell that opened up last week and immediately shot to the top of our list.
It’s a jumble of brands like Tellason, Garbstore and 18Waits, together with company profiles and Art of Manliness-style nostalgia. You could spend a whole afternoon exploring the site—but since you’re busy, we’ve rounded up the three coolest things below.
A leather bag, a motorcycle and James Dean’s pea coat, after the jump»
We try to steer clear of anything that isn’t hitting stores in the near future—but there’s more impressive gear on the docket for Spring/Summer ’12 than we could keep to ourselves, so we’ve put together some detail shots and some well-chosen info to whet your appetite. The bad news: you won’t be able to get your mitts on any of it until February. The good news: you’re in for quite a February.
Here’s a low-risk way to get a piece of the seemingly immortal camo trend: put it on a bag. This carryall from Billykirk is the perfect example, pairing a blown-up leaf-pattern camo alongside Billykirk’s usual craft-focused leatherwork. It’s the rare bag that you can match to your pocket square—and camouflage aside, you won’t have any trouble spotting it on a baggage carousel.
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It’s a safe bet you’re headed on a road trip at some point this summer, and whatever you take with you is going to take a little bit of punishment. So to save your precious leather weekender from mysterious trunk puddles, you’ll want to upgrade to a slightly more rugged bag. This Rag & Bone duffel fits the bill pretty well. The gray canvas is sharp enough to stay handsome through all manner of misadventure—which is a fancy way of saying you can kick it around without feeling too guilty.
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We’ve got a new favorite gym bag of the moment: this half-dyed canvas number from Paris’s Teddyfish, cheekily dubbed “The Red Balloon.” It’s sold out at the moment, but we can dream…
Deadstock isn’t a new trick, but this is the first time we’ve seen the fabrics in question carry through their logos. Freitag puts their bags together from car seatbelts and truck tarpaulins, making for sturdy straps and waterproof fabrics. Their personal touch is leaving the tarps completely untouched, which means you’ll occasionally catch the tail end of a slogan—including on this one from their newly arrived Lois line of gym bags. We’re guessing it used to say “blast off,” but we’re open to suggestions.
Luggage has gotten a bit ahead of itself these days.
All this talk of overweight fees and biometrics leaves us yearning for simpler times. So, in the case of the winter weekend getaway, we’ll opt for this super-minimalist holdall from Irish luxury goods purveyor, De Bruir. Sans locks, zips or ballistic nylon, even its simple brass buckles are concealed by an unfinished leather flap.
It has enough room to handle a weekend’s worth of our woolly sweaters and moleskin cords and the sturdy bridle leather look as though it does a superb job of maintaining its shape. Think of it as the perfect carryall for impromptu getwaways… or your daily trips to the minimalist gym.
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One of San Francisco’s best men’s shops, Unionmade, just opened up for eCommerce, and we’ve been picking through the resulting lucre all day. The haul includes a few Gitman button-downs, Alden boots and Hill-Side ties—in short, everything you’d expect from a modern purveyor of gentleman’s goods.
The big surprise? This messenger bag from an outfit called Farm Tactics managed to spice up the staple waxed cotton satchel with a layer of mesh—perfect for holding any rugged items (including starfish) you may pick up in your travels. It gives the whole item a military quality, which is about right considering the history involved…and thankfully, you won’t have to trek out to San Francisco to pick it up.
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Of all the handsome stuff kicking through the second-hand shops of the world, our favorite is the vintage briefcase, for one very simple reason: clichĂ© or not, they just don’t make them like they used to.
There’s a reason for that too. It’s a throwback item at its core—built without iPod pockets, a phone holder or any other concessions to the modern age. But despite the gray flannel associations, the look of well-worn leather has attracted quite a few modern followers. You may have noticed the gents at Street Etiquette making particularly good use of them, or Blackbird’s recently unearthed Salesman’s model. But if you’re in the market, you’re still better off checking eBay…or just trawling your friendly neighborhood vintage shop.
The downside? Well, they’re heavier than they strictly have to be, they can’t handle your groceries like those canvas tote bags…but there’s still no better way to show the world you mean business.
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Never underestimate a bike nerd on a mission.
Take, for instance, the case of Velo Orange. Their stock-in-trade is bike hardware: shifters, fenders, cranksets and everything else. It’s handsome enough, but not exactly essential gear. But when they turned their attention to bike storage, they had the connections to track down a 50s-era Japanese luggage company and end up with some of the most handsome bike gear we’ve seen since…well, this.
They’ve got panniers (the ones that hang alongside the back wheel) and baskets (the ones that hang over the front wheel), but our favorite is this bag that suspends itself perfectly still over the back tire. It’s perfect for any picnics or unusually refined tailgating you may have in your future. And, thanks to the enduring frugality of the biking crowd, none of it will set you back more than $150.
We call it the bag conundrum. A gentleman should be prepared for all situations, which entails carrying a certain array of vital stuffs on his person at all times. But since you never want more than an elegant sufficiency, selection is key. That’s why we were happy to stumble onto this flickr page documenting 60 ladies and gentlemen, juxtaposed with the contents of their bags. Good stuff, but we’re distressed at how few notebooks were seeing.
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We’ve got a soft spot for rough canvas bags, but Gant’s newest item brought up one we’d almost forgotten about: the laundry bag. This piece from the Rugger line strips down luggage to its most elemental. That means no structure, no side pockets, just a sack of canvas with a zipper and a strap. It’s not that different from the bags sailors used to haul their gear a few generations back, so it should do just fine outside the laundry room.
Nobody likes a grouchy critic, but if you put those same sentiments on a tote bag, you can get away with just about anything.
Case in point: this cloth sack modeled off a John Baldessari lithograph, currently on sale at the Tate Modern. If you can’t make out the cursive, it reads “I will not make boring art,” scrawled out a mind-numbing 26 times on each side.
That should teach him…
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There are a lot of bags out there, but we’ve always thought less was more. Which means if you’ve got a bundle with you—maybe a few books, a notebook and an iPod—it may be easier to strap them together into an easy-to-carry brick, possibly with this Australian device. It’s a minimal solution, sure…but those are usually the best ones.
If you’re suffering over your bag choices as much as Guy Trebay is, we may be able to offer some assistance. Don’t worry, it involves waxed cotton.
Previous Killspencer creations focused on rescuing great fabrics from the trash pile—specifically disused military tarpaulins, conditioned to withstand just about anything—but this time around, for the Classic Collection, it’s a little more basic: a black filter twill recipe dug up from military outfitters circa 1837, treated with water repellant wax and stitched into everything from a weekender satchel to a briefcase.
The collection hit the online store launched this morning for your browsing pleasure, and while you won’t find any day-to-day totes, but we’re guessing this utility bag would make a pretty good substitute.
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Last time we checked in with Hard Graft, they were reinventing the wallet with a little help from raw felt, but it looks like they’ve been plenty busy in the year since.
Today, they unveiled their latest creation, a gray leather satchel that can transform into a laptop case, a portfolio or a weekender bag. It’s called the 3Fold, and depending on how you button, snap and fold it, it can be perfect for anything from a coffee shop run to a weekend in the country. Hopefully the leather’s tough enough to stand up to all that creasing, but in the meantime you’ll get a little extra use out of the day-tripping bag that usually sits in the back of your closet.
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The rules of the flight bag are pretty simple: Keep it slim and keep it simple. If you do it well, you’ve got a
And in this case, BillyKirk did it very well indeed. This flight bag brings together waxed cotton and beautifully worn leather trim for a one of the better carryalls we’ve seen this year (at least of the ones that didn’t say Filson on them). Luckily, the retro vibe didn’t stop them from sizing it just large enough for a laptop.
But it should fit in that overhead compartment.
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The New York Daily News chose today to delve into the treacherous world of the man bag, and the results were every bit as spectacular as you would expect. It looks like they wandered around Union Square for half an hour with a camera man, but great photosets have been put together with less. Especially when they contain pictures like this one.
This gentleman’s Leonello Borghi pack is pretty much the murse personified. From the outsized proportions to the flamboyant fringe, it’s what every straight man worries about when he sets out bag shopping. It also makes the gentleman in question look like he’s trying to smuggle a baby sheepdog onto the 6 train.
To be fair, the photoset does show off some handsome, non-ridiculous satchels from Filson, 3.1 Philip Lim and Banana Republic, but they all get upstaged by the fearless lunacy of Mr. Borghi. Shine on, you crazy bag man.
Summer’s days may be numbered, but we finally came across the perfect getaway bag.
This Porter carry-all blends linen, rayon and cotton for a material that’s not that far from your favorite August button-up, then stitches it all up into the kind of weekender bag that’s just begging to be thrown into the back seat of a beach-bound car. It’s not quite as indestructible as their canvas offerings…but you’ll only need it to last through Labor Day.
Whether it’s a wedding or a beach trip, odds are you’ll be hitting the road at some point in the next few weeks, with a well-chosen two-day supply of clothing securely in tow. And while your bag options are vast and many-splendored, we’d like to throw this waxed cotton duffel from Jack Spade into the ring.
It’s smaller than the “duffel” tag might lead you to believe—just over two feet from end to end—and the outside is an unbroken swath of the waxed cotton that you may have seen on a jacket or two. There are pockets on the inside for your razor and toothbrush, but the outside is as simple as a beach weekend would suggest.
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If you were looking for a new bike, you’ve probably already found it by now. But we’re guessing it could use a few accessories…
These saddlebags from Brooks come via the UK, where bike culture has been in bloom for a bit longer, so they’ve got a few tricks you might not expect. For one, they can fold into inconspicuous rolls when you’re not using them, only to unfurl the minute you’ve got groceries to haul.
And of course, it’s always good to have a bit more waxed cotton around.
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No sooner had we gushed about the impeccable mystique of the Japanese bagmakers at Porter than we caught wind of their latest creation: a mesh gym bag.
It’s not a bad item—in fact, it’s probably one of the better gym bags we’ve seen—but nothing punctures mystique like cotton mesh. We were hoping for a catalog full of sleek black briefcases and seamless nylon bags. Adding a string-strapped semi-tote to their repertoire makes the whole enterprise seem a whole lot less monolithic.
On the other hand, you’ll still have to pay for it in yen, so we’d say their cult brand cred is still firmly intact.
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Unlike dress shirts, a messenger bag only gets better with the occasional stain. It’s not damage; it’s character.
Of course, a little waxed cotton helps. These Earnest Alexander messenger bags (via Refinery29) aren’t blowing any minds, but it’s good to have a source for rugged satchels that just happens to stitch them together in New York—a locale with more than its share of style locavores.
Just be sure it doesn’t match your jacket.
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