After I purchased the Fjällräven Kånken backpack six years in the past, I didn’t suppose I used to be fixing an issue. In reality, I suspected I used to be creating one. I used to be dwelling in a German faculty city the place each grownup appeared to personal this extremely charming, suspiciously costly youngsters faculty backpack. After months of deliberation, I succumbed to the attract. However I used to be anxious: Had I been brainwashed by sheer overexposure? Would the bag languish in my closet?
Nobody is extra stunned than me that the Kånken is my go-to for day journeys, procuring afternoons, and intra-European flights (the place the non-public merchandise dimension restrictions are tiny). It hits that candy spot between when a handbag is just too small and an ordinary backpack is just too large, when an outsized tote kills your shoulder and an outdoorsy day pack kills your vibe.
It’s good for somebody like me, whose model skews center schooler and whose again skews middle-aged. As a result of it was designed for college youngsters, it’s smaller than most grownup backpacks. And since it was designed in Nineteen Seventies Sweden, its retro allure is legit. Plus, it’s impressively gentle—a mere 10.5 ounces in contrast with traditional faculty baggage that usually weigh nearer to 1.5 kilos.
Sturdy, light-weight, and stuffed with retro allure, the Basic Kånken is a small but spacious backpack best for day journeys. Nevertheless, it lacks inside refinement and its straps are unpadded.
Regardless of being small (14 by 11 by 5 inches), the Kånken can be surprisingly spacious. It’s largely one massive compartment with an prolonged zipper that provides you entry to each inside inch. I like which you could’t match an excessive amount of (that is undoubtedly not a laptop computer bag), however you possibly can match every part you want for a time out. I don’t are inclined to overpack it, however, after I do, I prefer to unzip it absolutely and cargo it flat.
It has a couple of helpful pockets: a zippered entrance pocket for gadgets you wish to entry rapidly and two small facet slip pockets. I take advantage of one facet pocket for my cellphone and the opposite for a water bottle (although it took some effort to seek out one slender sufficient to suit). Whereas it doesn’t have any inside pockets, I take advantage of the slip pocket that holds the again pad to retailer slim valuables, akin to my passport.
The lengthy prime handles are helpful and distinctive for a backpack, letting you carry it like a procuring bag. That is useful whereas squeezing by way of crowds, in shops stuffed with breakables, or in museums the place you possibly can’t put on a backpack. It’s additionally very straightforward to hold up on a bar hook or in a restroom.
The Vinylon F material is extraordinarily sturdy, and my backpack has held as much as six years of scrapes and scratches. (Apparently some Swedish adults nonetheless have the Kånkens from their faculty days.) Whereas it has weathered, it seems like the great form of getting older, like leather-based’s mild softening. The bag’s contents keep dry by way of gentle rain (although I soaked it by way of as soon as throughout a downpour), and the brand is a reflective badge, an added bonus for strolling round at evening.
Past its sturdiness and smart dimension, this backpack has one thing many others don’t: model. It doesn’t simply pack flat and weigh subsequent to nothing, it really appears cute in trip images. The colour choices are virtually limitless—actually. You possibly can select contrasting straps and even customise it utterly. I picked low-key colours so it wouldn’t conflict with my typically high-key ensembles, however I’ve seen extra muted dressers go daring for a enjoyable pop of shade.
After a couple of years, I admit it—I received bored with the unpadded straps chopping into my armpits and sprung for the Kånken shoulder pads, which solved the difficulty however value twenty bucks. One other con: The again padding is actually simply an uncovered piece of polyethylene foam marketed as a detachable seat cushion. It protects my again surprisingly effectively, nevertheless it’s so janky that some folks by chance throw it out pondering it’s packing materials—and I’ve not as soon as thought of utilizing it as a so-called seat cushion.
For nearly 50 years, the unique Kånken has been unapologetically itself. Fjällräven is not going to add inside pockets. It is not going to develop the bag to suit your laptop computer. It is not going to learn the brand new literature on ergonomics. It is not going to refine the inside. It is not going to combine the again padding. There might be nary a loop to your pen.
However the Kånken might be spacious. Will probably be light-weight. Will probably be charming. And it will likely be all of this stuff exactly as a result of it’s so easy. Not stubbornly unchanging, however confidently traditional.
Imperfect, sure. And but: Day after day, week after week, 12 months after 12 months, I step out of the home, the town, the state, the nation. I modify time zones, I modify jobs. I’m going procuring, I’m going sightseeing, I’m going to the park, I take a hike, I hop on a motorcycle. I get stronger, I get weaker, I become old, my again disappoints me once more. I’ve a mountain of luggage to select from—stylish leather-based totes and crossbody baggage flush with pockets and amply padded backpacks—but when I’m going out for greater than two hours and as much as a day, I don’t blink a watch. I select this, my flawed little dream of a backpack.
This text was edited by Hannah Rimm and Maxine Builder.
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