Bag size guide

Every bag on this site prints three numbers in the same order: width, height, depth, in inches, measured on the outside. Width is the one people read; depth is the one that decides whether the bag is useful.

Start from what you carry rather than from the bag. Put the things you take out of your current bag on a table, from the folder to the water bottle, and measure the widest and the deepest of them. Those two numbers are your size.

What each width holds

On the bags in this catalog, these are the landmarks. Bodies and folders differ, which is what the tape measure settles, but the order never changes.

Depth is what takes a lunch box

The catalog runs from 4.7 to six inches deep, and the difference between the two ends is larger than an inch and a bit suggests. Below five inches a bag takes flat things like a tablet, a folder or a phone, and objects with a shape sit on top of them. At six inches a lunch box, a pair of shoes or a camera goes in and the flat things still lie under it.

This is where a structured bag and a soft one part company. A satchel at 5.5 inches deep holds exactly 5.5 inches of anything; a hobo at five inches deep will take more than that because the sides give, at the cost of the bag losing its shape while it does.

Strap drop, and why it matters more than length

Strap drop is the distance from the strap where it crosses your shoulder down to the top of the bag. It is not the length of the strap, and it is the number that decides how the bag is carried. Ours run from 6.2 inches to 10.7.

At about six inches the bag sits under your arm, tucked against the ribs: right for carrying into a meeting, wrong over a winter coat, because the coat takes the room the bag needed. At ten inches and over the bag hangs at the top of the hip and swings clear of everything you are wearing. If you commute in a coat for half the year, take the longer drop.

The pieces in the box have sizes too

The small bags are not one size. In the four-piece top handle set the messenger is 8.6 by 7 by 3.1 inches, the wristlet clutch is 7 by 4.3, and the card holder is 4.7 by 3.1, which means the wristlet takes a phone and the card holder does not.

That is worth checking before you decide a five-piece box is more than you need. The piece most people use second is the crossbody, and on the deeper boxes it is a bag in its own right rather than a pouch.

Every length on this page is measured the same way as the one printed on every card in the Soperwillton selection.