A landscape leather briefcase with twin top handles and a detachable shoulder strap, so it carries in the hand and across the body without changing anything about it. It weighs 820 g empty. The back panel has a pass-through band that slides over a trolley handle.
- Full-grain leather.
- 820 g (1.81 lb) empty.
- Twin top handles, plus a detachable webbing shoulder strap on swivel snap hooks.
- Zip top. Two zipped pockets on the front and a full-width open slip pocket above them.
- A pass-through band across the back for a suitcase handle.
- Two surface finishes, a pebbled one and a smooth one. The selector carries which finish comes with which option.
Briefcase or crossbody
This bag is sold under both names. The body is a flat landscape rectangle with a zip along the top edge, the proportions of a laptop bag rather than a satchel or a sling. Two short handles sit on top, close enough together to grab as one. A long webbing strap clips on at both ends and comes off again. So the shape is a briefcase and the carry is optional: hold it, or clip the strap on and wear it across the body.
Neither word is wrong. If you searched for a crossbody and expected something small and soft that hangs at the hip, this is not that. If you searched for a briefcase and expected a rigid attache with a frame and a lock, it is not that either. It is a soft-sided leather work bag that can be worn.
What full-grain means here
Full-grain is the top layer of the hide with the grain surface left on. Nothing is sanded off to hide scars or insect bites, and nothing is sprayed on to imitate a grain that was removed. That is the whole of the claim. It is a statement about which layer of the hide the panels were cut from, not a grade of luxury and not a promise about thickness, tannage or country.
Two things follow from it that matter in use. The first is that the surface is the animal's actual outer skin, so it takes on a patina rather than flaking: the fibers compress and darken where your hand and your side touch it, and that change is permanent. The second is that natural marks are not defects. A crease, a slight tone shift across a panel or a faint healed scar is what an unsanded hide looks like.
We have written the longer version of this, including how to tell full-grain from top-grain when a listing will not say, in our guide to full-grain leather.
The two finishes
The same bag is made in two surface finishes and they behave differently, which is worth understanding before you choose from the selector.
The pebbled finish is embossed: the hide is pressed under heat against a textured plate, which raises a fine, even grain across the panel. The practical effect is camouflage. A pebbled surface breaks up reflected light, so scuffs, fingerprints and the small dents a bag collects in a car boot or under a desk are much harder to see. It is the finish to pick if the bag is going to be used hard and you would rather not watch it happen.
The smooth finish is not embossed. The panel is left flat, so it reflects light in one sheet and shows depth of color that the pebbled version hides. It also shows everything else. Marks land on it and stay visible, and over a year of daily use it will read as a bag with a history rather than a bag that still looks new. Some people buy leather precisely for that.
The parts that are not leather
The shoulder strap is woven webbing, not leather. It is adjustable through a slider and it detaches at both ends on swivel snap hooks, which is why the bag can be a briefcase one day and a crossbody the next. The top handles are webbing too, wrapped at the grip by a leather bridge that holds them together.
Webbing under tension does not lengthen the way a leather strap does, so the handles hold their length under load. That does mean the parts that touch you most are fabric. If you specifically want an all-leather strap, this is not the bag.
Zips run along the top edge and across both front pockets. The strap anchors are stitched down with a reinforcing box at each corner, which is the joint that fails first on a bag carried by one shoulder.
What is on the outside
The front carries three separate places to put something, arranged so you can reach all of them without opening the main compartment.
Two zipped pockets sit side by side low on the front panel, one narrow and one wide. They are shallow. A phone, a pen, a folded charging cable or a passport go in flat. Nothing bulky does.
Above them, running the full width of the bag, is an open slip pocket with no closure. This is the one you will actually use most: a boarding pass, a notebook, a magazine or a set of papers slides in and comes back out one-handed. Because it has no zip, do not put anything loose in it that you would mind losing when the bag tips.
The back panel has its own slip pocket as well, behind the trolley band.
The back panel and a suitcase handle
A horizontal leather band crosses the back of the bag with both ends stitched down and the middle left open. A telescoping suitcase handle passes through it, and the bag then rides on top of the case instead of hanging off your shoulder while you walk an airport.
This is genuinely the feature that decides whether a work bag is pleasant to travel with, and it is the one most listings forget to mention. Two limits are worth knowing. The band fits over the twin rails of a standard extending handle; a single central post on some smaller cases can be a tight pass. And the bag sits on the case unsecured, held by geometry rather than by a clip, so it will stay put while you roll and it will not stay put if you tip the case over.
820 g, and what that is before you fill it
820 g is 1.81 lb. That is the bag itself with nothing in it.
For a full-grain leather bag of this footprint it is on the light side, and the reason is the construction: soft-sided, no frame, no rigid base board, webbing rather than leather on the straps. A frame would add structure and weight.
The number that matters to your shoulder is not this one. A thirteen inch laptop and its charger will add somewhere in the region of one and a half kilograms, which more than doubles what you started with. Leather bags feel heavier than fabric ones because they are, and 820 g of it is the floor rather than the total.
What owners report
Two owner comments are specific enough to be useful. One bought it as a gift and says the recipient avoided using it in the rain at first, expecting the color to transfer onto clothing, and reports that after three straight weeks of rain it had not. That is one bag over three wet weeks, not a water rating, and this is not a waterproof bag: it is untreated full-grain leather with exposed stitching and metal zips, all three of which let water in. But dye transfer is the specific fear people have about a dark leather bag against a light coat, and one owner in heavy rain did not see it.
Another says it holds plenty and feels sturdy. That is an impression, not a measurement.
Questions
Can I wear it across the body? Yes. The webbing strap clips on at both ends and adjusts through a slider. It also comes off entirely if you would rather carry it by the handles.
Is the strap leather? No. The shoulder strap and the top handles are webbing, with a leather bridge wrapping the handles at the grip.
Which finish should I choose? Pebbled if you want marks to disappear, smooth if you want depth of color and do not mind the bag showing its age. They are otherwise the same bag.
Does it go on a suitcase? Yes. There is a pass-through band on the back for a telescoping handle.
Is it waterproof? It is not waterproof, and it carries no water-repellent treatment. It is untreated leather with exposed stitching and metal zips. It will handle a walk through rain; it will not handle a downpour with a laptop inside, and it should never be submerged.
How do I look after it? Wipe it dry rather than letting it dry near a radiator, and condition it when the surface starts to feel dry to the back of your hand. Our leather cleaning guide covers what to use and what to keep away from it.
Will it change color? Yes, over time, and unevenly. That is what full-grain does. The pebbled finish hides the process better than the smooth one.
