Our Philosophy

On Bag Design

Why hand carry?

Backpacks make your back sweaty, messenger bags tug your spine sideways, and most bag makers neglect the experience of carrying the bag in your hand. A lot of otherwise-excellent bags have a mediocre handle, like a thin strip of webbing that cuts into your fingers, or a handle attached only to a lid flap (instead of securely to the main body of the bag). Meanwhile, loaded hand carry is getting research attention for its ability to build core and upper body musculature. You naturally switch hands every few minutes, working both sides of your body. So, we make bags that hand-carry well.

What if I need both hands free?

Shove your arm through the handle, putting the bag by your elbow. Or attach a shoulder strap.

On Longevity

If you’re sick of throwing out a bag every few years because it’s shedding bits of plastic or the zipper breaks, we expect you’ll be happy using your Slow Bag for much longer. Here is why.

Our beeswax-impregnated duck canvas has no coating to delaminate or shed microplastics. Natural wax wicks into the fibers and won’t flake off. It’s easy to add more wax if you ever need to.

Slow Bags have no zippers to jam and no plastic hardware to break. The only closure hardware is a set of rare-earth permanent magnets and a reinforced button. The strap attachment D-rings are solid brass. Everything load-bearing is bar tacked or box-X stitched to the bag.

Slow Bags have no TPU touch points to become gooey from prolonged exposure to skin oils. We don’t use basting tape or any other adhesives, which would speed up assembly but leave sticky goop hiding in seam areas.

Slow Bags have no foam padding to compress and break apart inside over time, so your slim padded laptop sleeve still makes sense inside the bag. (Closed-cell foam is unfortunately not buy-it-for-life.)

Finally, Slow Bags are 100% repairable, by us or anyone with a heavy-duty (walking foot or compound feed) sewing machine.

On Business

Why don’t you accept credit or debit cards?

First, because it’s risky and expensive for a small merchant to accept card payments. This interview with Josh Poertner from Silca is a good overview of the issues. Our bags take many American labor hours to make, and we’re unwilling to eat that cost if someone buys one with a stolen card or submits a fraudulent chargeback.

Second, we’re trying to do something different than the modern world of e-commerce, semi-disposable goods, next-day delivery, and debt-enabled consumer spending. We’re building Slow Bags. Getting one takes a few weeks and maybe a trip to the post office. We hope you’ll ‘get it’ when you unwrap your bag, notice the attention to detail, and realize there is nothing like it on Amazon Prime.