I RECENTLY texted a good friend to solicit his thoughts on the shoulder bag that’s become my default work bag since I returned to the office this summer. I told him not to hold back. He needed no such urging. “Drab—won’t be winning any beauty contests,” he fired back, unnervingly fast. He had a point: After years of service my carrier looked exhausted, with a pilling canvas body and frayed seams.
I resolved to replace it with a new bag for the breezy new era of office dressing. Post-lockdown, like many, I’ve returned to work dressed more casually than I was pre-Covid. My 2022 deskside look relies heavily on corduroy drawstring pants and big-pocketed overshirts, and I wanted my bag to match. Meaning: coolly laid-back, but just polished enough to indicate that I’m here to Slack, not slack off. Simple, right?
Not so fast. The men’s workbag market isn’t exactly alive with inspiring options, said Cassandra Sethi, a Los Angeles personal stylist with clients in finance, law and tech. “There has not been much innovation,” she said. “It’s really hard, even for me as a stylist, to find really cool bags for men.” Evidence of the yawn-inducing lineup soon stacks up. A quick Google of “men’s work bags”—or a visit to the office-gear section of various department stores—yields a selection of black laptop carriers engaged in a fierce tussle to look the most unfun. On the Tube in London, where I live, only the odd stuffy briefcase, sober tech folio or threadbare tote breaks the monotony of blah black backpacks. Whether the commuters I surveyed wore sharp tailoring or trendy sneakers, their outfits invariably had a “this’ll do” carrier unconvincingly tacked on.
Often when guys “think ‘work bag,’ they think ‘conservative bag,’” said Brandon Vulaj, a software engineer in Rochester, N.Y., who moonlights as a senior editor at bag-review website Carryology. But the carrier that shadows your commute, and parks by your desk, needn’t be a sad sack. As Ms. Sethi said, “we all know HR is not giving parameters on what bags to carry.” Ample scope for tote-based self-expression exists. You’ll just need to look far beyond models designated for office use.
When Mr. Vulaj suggested that anything could be a work bag provided it fits a laptop, I took that thought and ran with it—to army surplus shops, luxury boutiques, even hardware stores. I slid my MacBook into attractive canvas-and-leather tool bags more familiar with wrenches. I flirted with tech-friendly slings and nylon helmet bags (lightweight cousins of totes typically used by military pilots). I flung more sacks over my shoulder than Santa.
I decided my new bag would be neither a briefcase nor a backpack, the two styles that often dominate men’s offerings. You can find nice-enough models of both, but backpacks feel too sporty or schoolboyish, and briefcases too “Mad Men.” I wanted a bag that occupied the zone between childlike and C-suite. A bag that meant business, to a degree. That was grown-up-ish.
What I wanted, it turned out, was a souped-up tote. Forget flimsy canvas bookstore varieties; the class of carrier I settled on (see “Bags to Bag,” below) was shiny, handsome and beefy—a tote that belonged in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It sometimes has adjustable shoulder straps, gleaming zips to keep out rain and prying hands, and nooks for notebooks and laptops. Often it’s rendered in satiny nylon and other fashionable, high-performing fabrics that grant it heft and élan, and let it breeze into after-work drinks. “The tote has evolved,” said Olie Arnold, the style director at e-commerce site Mr Porter, noting that demand for meatier models has intensified since January.
When weighing the merits of such totes, Mr. Vulaj suggests you examine the quality of zips, stitching and lining, and test how comfortably the bag hangs in your hand and on your shoulder. Avoid going too big and bulky, added Mr. Arnold, and choose an aesthetic that complements your office attire. He recently bought a work bag himself, a black “tanker” tote from Japanese brand Porter-Yoshida & Co, a master of stylish men’s carriers. Its generous padding protects his laptop from getting dinged, he said. And it looks the part: Made from a glossy nylon recalling MA-1 bomber jackets, it boasts a casual slickness that goes with Mr. Arnold’s relaxed weekday ensembles.
Fabric proved decisive in my own bag hunt, too. One recent Sunday, I tested six buff totes at a trendy store, apparently setting a record for obsessiveness; the assistant said he’d never seen someone try so many bags at once. A leather-accented design was too big, a leopard-print wild-card option was too…wild. But when I slung on a navy number from Japan’s Nanamica, he chirped, “That’s the one!” He seemed suspiciously peppy, perhaps because he couldn’t bear to see me reach for a seventh option, but he was right about this bag. Its gorgeous water-repellent fabric—a crisp cotton twill—resembles that used in luxury trench-coats, reported Nanamica’s founder Eiichiro Homma. It has external pockets for my commute-ready magazines and water bottle, and a sheen that elevates my corduroy pants.
I bought it on the spot. I’m calling it my trench-tote.