Three shapes, and how to choose between them

We have deliberately not made twenty bags. There are three silhouettes, each released in several colours, and they are genuinely different objects rather than three names for the same thing.

Here is how to pick, including the part most brands leave out.

Tobkal, the triangle

Wide at the base, narrowing towards the top, borrowed from the outline of the mountain it is named after. It holds its structure rather than slumping, and the single circular cut-out is the handle, so there is no hardware anywhere on it.

Choose it if you want the bag to be the graphic element of the outfit, and if you like an object that keeps its shape on a table.

Be aware that a structured triangle does not squash. It will not disappear under your arm in a crowded room the way a soft bag does.

See the Tobkal in every colourway.

Nojum'lil, the circle

A round silhouette with an adjustable strap and button details. The circle is the most unusual shape of the three and the one people ask about most, because a round bag reads as deliberate in a way a rectangle never does.

Choose it if you want the most distinctive of the three, and if you tend to carry little: phone, cards, keys, a small pouch.

Be aware that a circle is a less efficient container than a rectangle for the same outside dimensions. That is the trade you are making, and it is a real one.

Jelija, the clutch that is also a shoulder bag

Structured, clean-lined, with an adjustable strap and button details so it works held in the hand or over the shoulder. It is the most classical of the three and the easiest to wear with something formal.

Choose it if you want one bag that crosses from an ordinary day to an evening without looking like it is trying.

Be aware that the Jelija is now in the archive. What is there is what is left.

Colour is the other axis

Because each shape exists in several hides, the shape decides the character and the colour decides the volume. The same Tobkal in olive and in hot pink are not the same proposition at all.

And since we work almost entirely with upcycled leather, chosen offcut by offcut, no two bags in what we call the same colourway are exactly identical. That is covered in the leather has already lived once.

If you still cannot decide

The honest heuristic: buy the shape for how you carry, and the colour for how you dress. People regret a colour they were not brave enough to take far more often than they regret one they were.

Everything is in shoulder bags, and care is covered in looking after a bag made from leather that already lived once.