Leather Tote Bags

Which of the five you want

If you carry a laptop and want the bag to look like it does not, take the Lorne work tote, which zips shut across the whole top. If you want an open top bag that swallows everything, the Marlow is the one, in large or medium. If you want something with more texture than a flat leather panel, the woven Wren is hand woven over a leather backing. If weight matters more than formality, the Ellis in waxed canvas is roughly a third lighter than the leather bags. And if your everyday bag is smaller than all of that, the small totes start at $135.

Sizes that mean something

Most tote listings online give you one width and leave you guessing. Ours list the opening, the height, the depth at the base and the handle drop separately, because those are the four numbers that decide whether a bag works. As a rule: a 13 inch laptop needs a 35cm opening, a 16 inch needs 40cm and a flat base, a water bottle standing upright needs 13cm of depth at the bottom rather than at the widest point, and a 22cm handle drop clears a shoulder in a coat.

Leather, and what it costs to do it properly

Everything here is full grain, which keeps the top layer of the hide with nothing sanded off. It is the strongest part of the skin, and it is why a scratch on one of our bags buffs out instead of showing a pale line underneath. It also means no two are identical. If that sounds like a defect rather than a feature, read the leather guide before you buy anything from anyone.

Your initials, free

Three letters in gold foil, silver foil or a blind press, set by hand before the bag is boxed, on every tote on this page. It adds about a day. Monogrammed bags are final sale, everything else goes back inside 60 days.

Every tote we make, side by side

Those are the only nine shapes we make. Every colourway on this page is one of them, and the measurement that decides most purchases is the second column rather than the first.

What a tote costs, and why ours sit where they do

Handmade leather totes in the US split into two groups. One sits between $95 and $140 and survives on a permanent crossed out price, often exactly half of a list price nobody ever paid. The other sits between $175 and $340 and does not discount at all. We are in the second group at the bottom edge of it, and we do not print a fake original price next to ours. If you see a $250 tote advertised at $125 every single day of the year, the honest price of that bag is $125.

At our end, the cost is hides and hours. A large tote takes about four square feet of full grain and most of a working day once the hand stitching and the four passes of edge burnishing are counted. That is the whole explanation. There is no import margin in the price because there is no importer.

Who makes them

Bag n Fable has been making leather goods for two years in a workshop in Sialkot, Pakistan, where the leather trade is generations old and where the people cutting and stitching your bag are the same small team every week. We are not a label on someone else's catalogue: we choose the hides, we reject about one in seven for scarring in the wrong place, and the initials on your bag are pressed by hand before it is boxed.

What that means for you, practically: stitching and hardware are covered for as long as you own the bag, we repair rather than replace, and if something is wrong when it arrives you deal with the people who made it.

Looking after it

Dust it with a dry cloth. Keep it off a radiator and out of a hot car, because heat is what dries leather out, not use. Condition it once a year with anything neutral and very little of it. Never use a coloured polish on aniline leather, and never put waxed canvas in a machine. Full detail is in the care guide, and the leather guide explains what full grain actually is if you are comparing us against a bag described as genuine leather.