Metier Bags
OK, I love nice shit. I do. I am particularly fond of shoes, eyeglasses, jackets of all ilks, and luggage. Yes, luggage.
My latest obsession is Métier Bags. I have the Racer 53, which I take with me everywhere. The 53 is part duffel and part briefcase. This makes it the perfect, sling over your shoulder, overnight bag. It's also got enough room, that I can go away for a week, without doing laundry, with this bag. Or 3 or 4 days if I am bringing a pair of running shoes and some workout gear.
So, you say, a lot of bags do that.
And you would be right.
But what's cool about Métier, particularly the men's line, is the understated quality. The Italian leather is the type that, as it gets beat up, it looks so much fucking better. And, it is not adorned with a ridiculous number of logos or signature cross-hatched leather announcing its price tag for all of your fellow travelers to see (unless that is your goal, which is completely cool). If you consider Bottega Veneta, LV, and Gucci, akin to driving a bright red Ferrari convertible down the middle of Main Street, Métier bags are the dark green Porsche 911 in the right lane of I95. It doesn't draw attention, but when it catches your eye, you know it is packed with quality and there is something for-very-real going on under the hood.
I love the bag so much, on a recent trip to London I made a pilgrimage to the company's one and only brick and mortar, chatted with the two lovely young ladies who worked there, and left with a briefcase. I still haven't broken the news two my wife on what that little excursion cost us. But, the briefcase is now my constant companion.
The Quick Story
Melissa Morris, a Philly-ish girl, founded the company in 2017. As a fellow entrepreneur, I really appreciate folks with vision and a knack for storytelling. Melissa's got both. Starting a successful bag company, yeah that takes some vision (and balls). But setting it up in London to give it some caché of European exclusivity from an aspirational point-of-view, and to be closer to her Italian leather purveyors from a practical one, is beyond smart. It's vision.
Just grab her catalogue or go to the company's website and you will quickly see, almost from a J Peterman perspective (and I do mean the Seinfeld J Peterman), the stories with which those of us who travel regularly, immediately identify.
Melissa Morris gets it. That's why I get her bags.
