The last bag I’ll ever own

My wife recently surprised me with a new laptop bag she had commissioned as a custom job, using my old German military backpack that had been gathering dust in the garage as raw material for the project.

I’ve always been picky about bags, and most of them tend to fall down in at least one category between material, layout, size, craftmanship, or durability. This one is the first that ticks all the boxes for me. It’s the perfect size, just big enough for a 14″ laptop. The internal layout is exactly as I would have designed it, the stitching and detail work are superb, and the material (being from a military backpack) is ridiculously sturdy. They even used one of the backpack straps as the carry strap, repurposed one of the outside gear pockets as an accessory pouch, and used one of the original buckle straps for the laptop compartment. And to top it all off, they sewed on a velcro strip, reattached my old name tape, and took the flag rondel off my old field cap and put it on the messenger bag.

I’m super happy with the end result, and I’ve retired all my other (store-bought) bags. The custom material and detail work makes this a unique one-off, and I believe this is the first time this company used that particular bag pattern, so there’s no other bag like it out there.

The company my wife approached with this commission is R.Riveter, for those of you who are curious. This is from their “Heirloom” line, where they take materials supplied by the customer and turn them into custom bags. They’re based in North Carolina and employ military spouses for their bag collection. (This isn’t a paid pitch–my wife paid full fare for their work.) They make mostly handbags and other bag patterns oriented towards women, but they’re thinking about making that messenger bag a regular item. I thought I should give them a shout-out because of the excellent work they did on this bag.

Here are some pictures:

My wife had them make her a bag out of the same material, which also turned out very well.