Bag OCD

My obsession with bags started as all my obsessions do (and no few episodes of Star Trek, too) with the stray words or remnant artifact from an older race, in my case (unlike Star Trek) the older race was my older brother. In particular I can remember that at some point in either late high school or early college he brought back his John Peters messenger bag and showed me all the great features it had - the strong buckle, the strap made from seatbelt material, the comfort of carrying and the ease of access. I must have been in elementary school or middle school at the latest and my impressionable mind latched onto this and has never let go.

This whole post is prompted by the delivery of my brand spanking new Zwei bag. I’d discovered this awhile ago but sadly it’s not sold in the states, but happily my sister-in-law recently moved to Barcelona and was coming by to visit this just past weekend. Yay for delivery! But before I get into that bag let me take things back a bit….

My search for the perfect bag has led me all over the place. The core of it rests in messenger bags - they’re easy to take on and off, provide quick access to their guts and are dead simple. In general my taste in bags tends toward the simple and light - I don’t generally want to be carrying around a lot of bag. So I prefer the simplicity of bags like Manhattan Portage, Timbuk2 and Crumpler. You can see the few I’ve ended up with - while they all are very similar, they weigh different amounts and have differing pockets and straps. I prefer a metal buckle and a strap that lets you tighten it arbitrarily - but you know sometimes I weaken and get one without. I don’t have a strong preference among the messenger bags I currently have, I use them for various purposes - I probably end up pulling the two Manhattan Portage bags the most - they happen to be the oldest of the bunch as well. The brown one is probably 15 years old give or take.

I also went through what I like to think of as my experimental phase. I was having some back pains from toting around my increasingly gear laden messenger bags and needed to simplify and ensmallify. To that end I opened the doors to fanny packs and man purses. The triple-5-soul fanny pack probably got the most use of them. It had the nice feature that it had back pack straps as well as fanny pack straps so you could carry them either way and a convenient place to hide the straps that weren’t currently in use. Unfortunately, well, it was still a fanny pack. As for man purses - I really wanted to find one that wasn’t so pursey - I think I used the Maxpedition one a for a little while, but eventually gave up - if a bag is that size, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it’s a man purse and you need to be way more comfortable with your masculinity than I am to be porting one of those around.

Then I’ve got the backpacks. These are both excellent packs. The big maxpedition bag is perfect for weekend trips. You can stuff an unbelievable amount of stuff into it. I often don’t believe what I can put in that and still close. It’s really great. And the Northface hydration pack - no hydration it’s just an awesome day pack. I take it pretty much on every trip I go on - it’s perfect because it’s small, carries a surprising amount of stuff, has the mesh holders on the side for water. I had long wanted a thin backpack like that, but it was only until one fateful trip to ComicCon where I saw that Jhonen Vasquez had a bag just like what I wanted and asked what the deal was and he let on that you can buy those hydration bags and just use’em like regular back packs. I don’t know why it never occurred to me, but there you have it.

Lastly we come to the fancier, work type bags. The Tumi was a gift to me which I initially was only luke warm on - but it’s really grown on me as I take it too client meetings - it’s much nicer than the other fare I usually bring.

And then the Zwei - it’s a small bag, I got the U7. Which is good for work. What intrigued me about it was the carry options. The shoulder strap is removable and the part that hangs over the top, courier bag style turns into handles, making the bag a lot more briefcase like. A lot of times I like to carry a bag in my hand, which usually involves coiling up the strap and generally being uncomfortable, but this bag elegantly solves the problem.

The strap itself is really cool, because it can kind of unstrap part of it to loop around your waist, which is really useful when riding a bike. Normally when bags have the waist strap, they just dangle off the bottom (really annoyingly, if you ask me) or you knot them up or what not. But this one just clips into the regular strap and so when it isn’t in use, it effectively disappears. It’s really a good solution.

The downside of the bag is that it really is a kind of heavy bag. I also made a mistake and got the bike attachment, which I thought would allow you to strap it to your handle bar - but it turns out you need a special Klickfix attachment for your bike. Ah well, you win some you lose some. But I’m really digging on this bag. I wish they were sold more in the states cause then I’d get my bag w/out the bike thing and maybe the slightly bigger one, too.

So there you have a journey through one man’s compulsive bag behaviour. If you want another one, and this one with way more and better pictures, check out Ben’s post.

Jun 11th, 2007 · Comments RSS · · · · · Tags: bags