When I travel, I use a man bag.  I can’t take all of the crap constantly in my pockets and don’t like those awful Italian hard bags that look ridiculous and nothing fits in them anyway. My usual travel attire is a backpack (Tumi) and another bag which is great for easy access on the plane for my headsets, iPad, Kindle, and passport.  I use the backpack as an extra and sometimes I even pack it in my suitcase.  I like to travel with a compact Briggs and Riley four-spinner suitcase.  It’s always carry-on friendly and it fits above every plane but has an expandable pop out if you need it.

My usual travel attire is a backpack (Tumi) and another bag which is great for easy access on the plane for my headsets, iPad, Kindle, and passport.  I use the backpack as an extra and sometimes I even pack it in my suitcase.  I like to travel with a compact Briggs and Riley four-spinner suitcase.  It’s always carry-on friendly and it fits above every plane but has an expandable pop out if you need it.

So back to the man bag.  I found the perfect man bag recently and bought my son a bag two years ago on the website Mr. Porter when they were having a great sale.  It is a waxed cotton weekender bag and it looked really cool.  So a month ago, he was traveling with it and I had forgotten that I bought it for him!  I took a photo of it, wrote down the maker of the bag (Ally Capellino), and sourced down the store looking for a small cross-over bag for all my essential stuff.  On their website, they had a great looking compact bag, but I really needed to see the bag for myself.

So, I found myself in London last month, headed to their store on Lambs Conduit Street…wow, wait, what’s that name all about?!  Funny you asked. Named after William Lambe for his contribution to a dam (a conduit) that was restored along the River Fleet.  I thought it was a place that lambs were led to the slaughter or something more terrible, but alas, it really was not a game changer of a name.  Nowadays, the area is super cool in Bloomsbury with lots of fun shops and bars and a great pub called…you guessed it, “The Lamb”.  But, getting back to the story – this area is most importantly home to the wonderful Ally Capellino store.  So this place is a real gem.  They have awesome bags, great designs, and although a little pricey, not crazy.  It’s my working briefcase on a daily basis, my travel companion on planes, and a sure-fire way to keep me organized.  And I think it doesn’t look ridiculous. What do you think?