AM I SATCHEL?

Accessories

BURDEN OF REAMS

Gustav Temple advocates paying as much care and attention to the portmanteau in the hand as one does to the suit of clothes on the body

What is wrong with the above photograph, apart from the fact that the gentleman is not wearing a hat? The poor fellow has clearly made an effort to dress smartly, by donning a blue two-piece suit, but what is that thing weighing down his right shoulder? If he’s about to go trekking in the Himalayas, he’s wearing the wrong clothes entirely and he’ll definitely need at least a Panama hat, if not a Solar Topi.

The leather briefcase in his right hand indicates that he is not on the way to the airport to catch the first plane to Nepal, but on his way to a business meeting of some kind. There is no business setting in which whoever he is meeting

“There is a fashion for men with large beards, tattoos and a sense of selfimportance to sling their portmanteaux over their shoulders via a shoulder strap. This aids them to cycle furiously on a singlespeed velocipede towards important meetings with small-batch coffee roasters and producers of podcasts”

will be delighted to watch him heft his great black rucksack on to the table. He certainly will not be taken seriously by his potential future colleagues. The leather briefcase probably contains all that he needs for the meeting (a sheaf of papers, a laptop, a copy of Forbes if it’s for business; microfiche and pistol if it’s for pleasure).

Readers will undoubtedly have witnessed this many times before: the sight of a man in a passably elegant suit with the apparent intention of wrecking the shoulder pads by slinging a heavy rucksack over his back. It is as absurd as trekking in the Himalayas with a briefcase (though probably not as stylishly eccentric).

Many men seem to believe that, once they’ve put all their effort into choosing the right suit, shirt, cufflinks, socks, shoes and watch, the matter of luggage is a mere afterthought. Gentlemen, it is no such thing. One’s personal portmanteau should be selected, both upon purchase and for each day’s tasks, with as much care and attention as one’s suit of clothes. If you go to all that trouble with your clothing, why go and ruin it by accessorising it with the sort of thing a ten-year-old boy might take to school?

In days of yore, a man would expend as much time, effort and money on the purchase his two or three items of luggage as he would the rest of his outfit. He would have spent a decent amount of moolah on three key items. One large suitcase for foreign travel (leather, reinforced, compartments for cufflinks and secret documents); one overnight valise for weekend trips in the UK (leather or canvas, small enough to fit in the overhead racks of a railway carriage, large enough to contain evening dress, country tweeds and several changes of underwear); and one briefcase for work purposes. The term ‘briefcase’ evolved from the use lawyers

made of them to transport their briefs (the legal kind as opposed to the undergarment kind) to court. The item, usually made of leather, evolved from the 14th century satchel, originally called a ‘budget’, whose French name bougette evolved from the Latin word bulga meaning ‘leather bag’. The name ‘budget’ evolved into the financial term still in use today – and of course, in Britain, still presented once a year in a red despatch box by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

All of this means, in short, that one should carry around one’s business appurtenances in a case made of leather. There is a fashion for men, particularly those with large beards, tattoos and a sense of selfimportance, to sling their portmanteaux over their shoulders via a shoulder strap. This aids them to cycle furiously on a single-speed velocipede towards their important meetings with small-batch coffee roasters and producers of podcasts. There is nothing wrong with a leather satchel with a shoulder strap, but generally the ones made in earlier decades only had a carrying handle, and this mode of conveyance is still not the cause of any great inconvenience. It is also far more elegant when arriving at a business meeting, for it precludes the awkward moment when one has to bow one’s head and shoulder in order to remove a bag strapped across one’s chest.

A leather briefcase or satchel with only a carrying handle can even be flung rather insouciantly on to the table, giving the others at the meeting the impression that they are dealing with a no-nonsense type who is ready to get straight down to business.

Do you think your satchel, briefcase or portmanteau cuts the sartorial mustard? If so, feel free to send a photograph to chap@thechap.co.uk for publication n

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