Let me tell you who I am before I tell you about the bag. I am Anne, I am 67, I live in Harrogate, and I do not normally write things on the internet about things I have bought. What I do is go on weekends. Weekends at my daughter's in Newcastle, weekends in Whitby, three nights in the Lakes every October since 1994. I have packed and repacked a succession of holdalls I am now quietly embarrassed about.
These bags came up at my friend Patricia's farmhouse on the edge of the Dales. One was hanging on the back of her kitchen door and I walked past it twice before I thought to ask about it. It is a quilted bag with a handmade camper van scene across the front, peace signs, little flowers, an orange sunset. Sitting there in a farmhouse near Skipton looking like something someone had stitched by hand.
She said it was from Abbey Lane, a small British boutique, and that they were handmade. I ordered one that evening. I have not been back to my old holdall since.
It comes down to six things.
When it lands on a luggage rack, people ask about it
I took it on a National Express coach to see my grandchildren in Newcastle. There is nothing more invisible than the luggage rack of a National Express coach, a row of black holdalls and anonymous trolley cases. Mine was the only bag anyone looked at twice, and before we had cleared Harrogate two women had asked where I had got it. I have carried bags on coaches for forty years and nobody has ever asked about one before.
My daughter-in-law asked where I had bought it before I had got through the front door. My son noticed it, which is more than he has ever done for any item of clothing or luggage I have owned in twenty-three years of mothering him.
"Took it to the seafront at Whitby with four other women. Every single one of them asked where it was from before we had finished our chips. One of them ordered on her phone on the walk back."
It holds a proper weekend without arguing
Two changes of clothes, spare shoes, wash bag, a book I pretend I will read, and the cardigan I will definitely need. It all goes in. The wide opening means you can see everything at once rather than emptying the whole thing on a hotel bed, and when you pack to come home everything goes back without the small act of violence that a stuffed holdall requires.
"Took it for three nights in the Lakes. Everything fitted, including the boots, and I could find it all without unpacking the whole thing at the bottom of the bed. My old bag would have lost the boots completely."
"I am 5ft 1 and was worried it would be too big. It is exactly right. I can reach the bottom without losing an arm."
The quilting is clever, not just pretty
Soft all over, so it squashes into a coat rack or under a train seat without a fight, then comes out looking entirely unbothered. The padding is not only on the outside. What is inside travels cushioned. My reading glasses have survived four trips they would not have survived in the canvas holdall, which I mention because it is the sort of thing you do not know until you know it.
"Squashed it into the overhead on the train to Edinburgh. Pulled it out at Waverley looking considerably better than I did."
The straps go all the way round
Most holdall straps are stitched on at the ends and relying on optimism and a handful of thread. These wrap around the entire body of the bag, which is why the weight is held by the whole bag rather than by four centimetres of fabric and goodwill. They are covered in the same embroidered design as the rest, so even the part that does the carrying is pleasant to look at. No digging. No red marks by the car park.
"I have weak wrists and carry everything on my forearm. These are the most comfortable bag straps I have used in ten years and they look as good as the bag."
Two sizes, and they tell you which one to get
The 40-centimetre bag does an overnight, the gym, or a cabin bag. The 46-centimetre does two to three nights with shoes and a towel. Abbey Lane prints the measurements on the page and tells you plainly that most women prefer the larger size, which matches everything I know about packing and about weekends. I bought the smaller one first on a quiet instinct. I was wrong.
"Bought the bigger size on their advice and it was the right call. You never wish a weekend bag were smaller. You nearly always wish it were bigger."
It lives by the door between trips
This is the part I did not expect. It does not go back on the shelf when the trip is over. It does the overnight at my daughter's on Tuesdays, the swim bag on Thursdays, and last month it carried a care package to a friend in hospital with more warmth than anything in black nylon could have managed. My old holdall went back into the loft cupboard the moment I got home. This one has not been in a cupboard since August.
"Mine has not been off the hook by my front door in four months. It has been to Llandudno, two weekends in the Dales and every Tuesday swim. The old holdall is still in the loft where I left it."
