Great Bags Report

Everyday carries for everyone

Welcome to Concorde, Blackbird Spyplane’s “women’s vertical” that the fellas love as well. Every edition is archived here.

We don’t go on “brand trips.” We don’t run ads. We don’t use affiliate links on the new clothes we cover, and we don’t accept gifts. This means the only people we owe anything are our readers, who know that our Extremely High Levels of Discernment are unsullied by conflicts of interest, wackness, and bogosity. Thank you.

I (Erin) registered my antipathy toward handbags in the first-ever Concorde, nearly 3 years ago. I’ve revisited the subject countless times since then, and today I’m dedicating the whole damn sletter to bags.

Why, you might ask, is someone with so many gripes about bags spending so much time thinking and writing about them?

Call it “positive hating.” As Jonah put it the other day, “thinking systematically about the reasons why we don’t like” something “can be enormously useful.”

Meticulous research, along with lots of positive hating, has helped me articulate exactly what I do and do not want from a bag. Beyond being well designed, cool-looking, and comfortable to carry, my No. 1 criteria is that a bag should not be instantly recognizable, whether it’s via a logo, visible label, or ubiquity.

I’m not just talking about avoiding cheesy fashion logos. I never personally opted into, say, Lemaire’s croissant bag or SC103’s links tote — two excellent, Concorde-approved designs that I 100% think look sick on each and every one of my friends who wear them — because they strike me as too readily legible right now.

I reserve the right to tweak and amend my rules as time goes on, of course, because we all need to periodically kick the tires of our self-presentation, check in and see if the things we are wearing, or avoiding, need some tweaking. I believe it was the ancient philosopher Diogenes — who lived in a barrel and was known to carry his meager possessions around in a single, simple bag — who said, “to be fully fixed is to risk being fully washed”…

Today I’m sharing beaucoup bags, all of which lead with utility, can be rocked by the ladies and the fellas alike, and reflect a mix of under-the-radar independent lines and vintage gems. They’re all unbranded, too, except for three exceptions: one is vintage, another is Japanese and the third is from a company that makes wrenches 🤌.

And, as usual, I put a bunch of exceptional vintage bags for you in 🚨SpyMall🚨 and all the bags we’ve previously covered live in the Concorde Guide and BBSP Index.

Let’s get to it —