A look behind the scenes.
The Story. We all have our expensive hobbies. For me, its making carry goods. But ever since I upgraded to my industrial sewing machine, I’ve only ever made 2 bags with it. I just haven’t had the time away from my other professional pursuits — you know, the things that pay my bills.
But I’ve been itching to get back into actually making something. Then I got a request from a friend of a friend, to make a sling bag: more like a cross between a duffel and a sling.
Built to hold everyday carry essentials for the urban traveler, or college athlete:
- a laptop & cables
- papers
- stationery
- a pair of shoes & socks
- a change of clothes
- wallet, keys, earphones and small items
The Design Process. I frequently sketch out concepts and ideas for new carry goods: complete with dimensions, and material specifications. They’re usually based on ideas I’ve gotten from identifying design improvements from brands that just drop the ball on a critical feature or two.
Sometimes its an outrageous price point for not much quality, or choice of material, or perhaps the lack of padding — or a great concept that wasn’t executed as well as it could’ve been. Other times its about taking a design and adapting its form and features to a different user profile.
This (to me) is what separates copying from a thoughtful, deliberate process of deconstruction and recombination of borrowed elements. A good litmus test is whether the new product is merely cheaper in price, or poorer in build quality/features (often to make it cheaper; but not functionally better).
For this project, I revived an old design I’d developed while working on a project for a sports bag startup in Singapore a few years ago. The Freitag F45 Lois, and larger variant F46 Clark, are brilliant.
Most duffels are cylindrical, and struggle with laptops. Most duffel designs simply don’t bother with making a laptop sleeve, or place it at the base. Having your laptop take the brunt of your bag load sounds like a terrible idea to most people.
But the brains at Freitag cleverly reshaped the duffel to have a cuboid profile, and located the laptop sleeve at the side wall. The opposite wall could hold a t-shirt or two. I also liked that the main compartment was just big enough to hold a pair of shoes, with some room to spare for cables, a toiletries bag, a small bottle, and a pencil case. A quick access pocket at the end of the duffel made it easy to get to keys, cash and access cards.
Organization. Setup and layout are pretty much similar to the Freitag F45 Lois. I made some minor changes to the patterning of the panels for better overall structure of the bag, and pockets for added volume to the clothes sleeve.
- a laptop & papers (left wall sleeve, interior access)
- a change of clothes (right wall sleeve, interior access)
- a pair of shoes & socks (roll top shoe sack in main compartment)
- stationery (main compartment)
- cables & sockets (main compartment)
- water bottle (main compartment)
- wallet, keys, earphones and small items (quick access pocket at front wall, exterior access)
Construction. I didn’t fancy the fact that the Freitag F45/F46 had basically zero padding for the laptop. That’s a deal-breaker for urban everyday carry. On top of that, Freitag’s upcycled PVC tarp had a rather flimsy structure — a shame, considering how neat the profile looks. And while I’m all for their sustainable fashion efforts, I feel that the design could do well with more office-ready fabrics:
- Exterior fabric: 1860D PVC-backed Nylon
- Lining fabric: Gold PU-laminated Nylon
- Handles & Straps: Polyester seatbelt webbing (satin/herringbone weave)
- Padding: 1/4" Polyethylene foam padding (all-around the walls & base)
I wanted this to be a bag that could just as easily go from the office to the outdoors. I don’t suppose many people enjoy toting sports bags that are flush with gaudy branding, large logos, and neon colors — it’s much too shouty. But people endure the embarrassment of carrying bags mismatched to their outfits often because dapper-looking bags often don’t have the organization, durability or capacity to hold the stuff needed for a sweat session.
This bag had to be different.
The Reveal. Three days, and many stitches later — the duffel finally comes to life.
Features. There are a number of features I love about this bag. I’ll run through them from the outside in.
- The handles are magnetically secured. Bring them close together and they snap in line. No more fiddling with snap buttons on padded wrap-arounds.
- A quick access pocket for keys, cards and other small items is located near your arm for easy access.
- Thanks to the design, the zipper remains straight, and easy to open even when carrying the duffel with a full load. Usually, centreline zips tend to sag, making them hard to unzip when you want to reach for something in the main compartment.
- The exterior is a PVC laminated 1680D Nylon, great for abrasion resistance. The interior is lined with gold, PU laminated nylon for visibility.
- The pocketing inside is nearly identical to the Freitag Lois/Clark. The laptop stays flat against the body for improved comfort when carrying.
What I’ve learnt. Building something is an exercising in testing your assumptions — especially when you’re working with textiles. The thing with textiles is that they aren’t easily modeled in 3D software like Solidworks. Each of the thousands of combination of different weaves and blends behave differently.
Soft goods is one of the industries in which the design process remains highly experimental. You need to constantly check and test your assumptions about how the fabric will drape, how it will stretch and pull when forces are applied.
Building this bag proved a lot of my assumptions wrong. I wanted it to take on a more oblong profile, but it turns out that that would cause the zipper to collapse, making it difficult to unzip while carrying in the hand. So I went with a shape that would keep the zipper close and easy to unzip.
Working with foam also proved a lot tougher and heavier than anticipated. The protection it offers a laptop is certainly high, but the weight leaves much to be desired. Also, it was an absolute bitch to sew down between the fabric layers — especially at the seams. Not only that, I found that foam didn’t provide the desired rigidity I envisioned.
One final note is that I was super chuffed that my Juki DU-1181N walking foot industrial sewing machine handled the thick layers like a champ. I’m fairly certain it could put neat stitches through a steak if I ever tried. At some points I was worried that the needle would snap — but it put clean, straight stitches through half an inch thick polyester seatbelt webbing.
I’m really happy with how this turned out, and I’d love to know what you think I should make next :) Leave a comment below, and tell me what you think!
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