The Bag That'll Save Your Ass Time and Time Again
SHOP $60, ssense.com and snowpeak.com
Welcome to The Esquire Endorsement. Heavily researched. Thoroughly vetted. These picks are the best way to spend your hard-earned cash.
Let's cut to the chase here: It's about time you get on board with bags. And no, I don't mean "man bags." What the fuck is a man bag? There's no need to verbally garnish your every purchase with a completely irrelevant identifier so you'll, like, feel more comfortable referencing it in passing to your boys. It's 2020. Get with the program, bucko. Gender is a construct and you should be carrying a bag. End of story.
What, you're telling me you'd rather continue to haul around all your various and sundry items willy-nilly, like some sad version of the "boys' pocket" meme rendered IRL? Don't be a walking meme, man. Nobody likes a walking meme.
Instead, invest in one of Snow Peak's sleek, tactical shoulder bags and store all your shit in one easily searchable place. Because I couldn't give less of a fuck what conventional notions of masculinity dictate a man is supposed to care about these days, but I've got a feeling practicality is still pretty high up on the list if that's your sort of thing.
It's ready-made for this moment.
A few weekends ago I was getting dressed to head out on a day-long bike ride to some far-flung edge of the outer boroughs (okay, it was Gowanus) when I remembered the shorts I really like, the ones with all those pockets (okay, they were cargos) were still in the wash. Don't judge me. You know how many useless tchotchkes I take with me just on a typical jaunt to the bodega down the street?
At any given moment I'm apt to have on my person a half-crushed pack of cigarettes with one (1) gradually disintegrating blunt tucked away somewhere in the back; a pair of vintage sunglasses that offer very dubious UV protection at best; a stick of lip balm that tends to end up smeared all over everything around it; a spare mask that's probably safer not to wear at all; a battered AirPods case with exactly fifteen (15) minutes of battery life left; an unreliable lighter that's always threatening to spontaneously explode; a set of keys that definitely unlock something, somewhere; a phone in desperate need of an update whose screen I can't remember cracking; a thoroughly water-logged wallet; and anything else I happen to be carrying around for a friend who casually asked if I had any room in my pockets.
What I'm saying is, there's no way I'm fitting all that shit in anything but a bag. And Snow Peak happens to make one of the best.
SHOP $60, ssense.com and snowpeak.com
It's one of the best ways to get involved in the burgeoning bag movement.
Listen, man: I'm not ordering you to suddenly go out and cop a purse. (But if you were wondering, hell yes, you should cop a purse! Better yet, make like Frank Ocean and buy yourself a Birkin, a savvy bag-as-investment power move on par with snapping up any undervalued piece of blue-chip art.) If a full-on purse is too much of a commitment for you right off the bat, Snow Peak's shoulder bag is an ideal way to get involved in the burgeoning bag movement. And when it comes to storing all your shit, it can't be beat for sheer convenience.
It's from a master of functional design.
Let's rewind a bit. Snow Peak was founded by Yukio Yamai in the late '50s in the mountainous Niigata Prefecture of Japan. Yamai was a dedicated outdoorsman—and, as it turns out, a solid judge of consumer interest—who started out designing hardcore climbing gear made by nearby craftspeople for fellow enthusiasts. By the late '90s, Tohru Yamai, the elder Yamai's son, had brought the brand stateside, gradually building a devoted following across the country in the process.
All that's to say Snow Peak's signature knack for rendering traditional silhouettes in forward-looking fabrications is steeped in a legacy of functional design most brands would pay through the teeth to authentically tout as their own. And if you're only going to trust one label to gently shepherd you into the bag-slinging reality that is menswear today, what more can you really ask for?
To misquote Hot Girl Meg, the reigning queen of every summer: I'm in my bag, and you should be too.
SHOP $60, ssense.com and snowpeak.com
Photography and prop styling by Allie Holloway
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