Leather Trim Weekender

Details

A flat-sided weekender in 18 oz waxed cotton duck with full-grain leather corners, handles and base runners. Flat-sided rather than cylindrical, so it packs like a small suitcase and stands where you put it. At 52 x 28 x 26 cm the capacity works out to 38 litres, which is the figure printed, because a litre number that does not follow from the dimensions beside it is a number someone chose. The trim is where the word leather stops meaning anything. Leather-trim bags are usually trimmed in the third grade of four: a split from the lower half of the hide, sanded, embossed with a grain that was never on it, and sold as genuine leather because the word reads like a guarantee. One grade below that is bonded leather, ground scrap glued to a backing, which is what most corner patches actually are and which delaminates at the fold inside a year. The corners, handles and runners here are 2.5 mm full-grain with the grain left uncorrected, checked by microscopy per hide. Handles are rolled full-grain over a cotton core, stitched and then riveted at four points each, because the rivet is what stops a handle tearing out when the bag is lifted heavy, which is when handles are always tested.

• 18 oz cotton duck, 610 GSM base, about 700 GSM waxed, measured to IS 1964
• Wax impregnated through the weave, FTIR confirmed, not a surface film
• 2.5 mm full-grain vegetable-tanned corners, handles and base runners, ISO 17131
• Chromic oxide nil by ISO 5398, chrome VI below 3 mg per kg by ISO 17075-1
• Rolled leather handles, stitched and riveted at four points each
• Structured 4 mm base board and five solid brass feet
• YKK number 10 main zip, two end pockets, one inner zip pocket
• Rear trolley pass-through sleeve, removable shoulder strap with a leather pad
• No bonded or split leather trim, no plastic feet, no glued base board
• It is meant to look worse and work better after twenty trips. The leather darkens at the handles first, and the waxed cloth goes pale along every crease within a month.