Start from your day, not from a photograph
If you leave the house with a laptop, lunch and a change of shoes, you want a large tote with a flat base. If you commute with a laptop and nothing else, a laptop tote with a padded back sleeve is lighter and easier to get in and out of. If you are carrying a bag through a market, a train or a school run, the zip top designs are the ones that let you stop thinking about the opening.
What we hear back most
The two things customers mention after six months are the handles darkening before the body does, which is normal and the reason we cut handles from the same hide as the panels, and the base holding square under weight, which is the reinforced panel doing its job. The complaint we hear is about the tan bags changing colour faster than expected. That is vegetable tanned leather behaving correctly, and it is covered honestly on every tan product page.
Colour, honestly
Black sells the most and shows the least. Brown is where the range is deepest because cognac, tan, chocolate and chestnut all read as brown and all age differently. Pale canvas is the one to think twice about if you put your bag on train floors.
Care, in one line
Wipe dust off with a dry cloth, keep it out of direct radiator heat, and condition it once a year. Full instructions are in the care guide.
Handle drop, and why it decides everything
A tote fails on the shoulder long before it fails anywhere else. Drop is the distance from the top of the handle to the top of the bag, and it is the number most listings leave out. Under 20cm and the bag has to be carried in the hand. Between 21 and 23cm it will sit on a shoulder over a shirt but fight you over a winter coat. At 24 to 25cm it clears a coat comfortably.
| Design | Handle drop | On the shoulder over a coat |
| Juno, small | 18cm | No, carried in the hand or the crook of the arm |
| Wren, small | 21cm | Over a shirt, not a thick coat |
| Lorne, both sizes | 22cm | Yes over a jacket, tight over a heavy coat |
| Ellis, small | 22cm | Yes over a jacket |
| Marlow, medium and Wren, regular | 23cm | Yes, comfortable over most coats |
| Marlow, large | 24cm | Yes, comfortable over anything |
| Ellis, large | 25cm | Yes, the easiest of the range |
Weight, honestly
An empty large leather tote is between 1.1kg and 1.3kg. Put a 16 inch laptop, a charger and a water bottle in it and you are carrying four kilos on one shoulder for the length of a commute. That is not a small thing, and it is the single most common reason a beautiful bag stops being used. If your commute is long or on foot, the waxed canvas Ellis does the same job at 0.95kg, and the medium sizes save another 200 grams. We would rather talk you into the lighter bag now than take the return in a month.
What we hear back after six months
Three things, consistently. The handles darken before the body does, which is normal and is why we cut handles from the same hide as the panels rather than from a cheaper offcut. The base holds square under weight, which is the reinforced panel doing its job. And the tan bags change colour faster than people expect, which is vegetable tanned leather behaving exactly as it should but is worth knowing before you buy rather than after.
Made by people you can reach
Two years in, the same small team in Sialkot cuts and stitches every bag on this page. There is no factory floor and no third party brand behind it. If something is wrong, the reply you get comes from the workshop, and the repair is done by the person who made the bag. How our bags are made walks through the process from hide to box, and our story explains how we got here.