The best fanny pack for me is not for you
On letting go of the Wirecutter mentality
Back in November 2022, I was 3 months into my quest to replace my ratty yet reliable Patagonia ultralight 3-liter travel waistpack. In seven years of ownership, it accompanied me to some 20 countries spanning three continents, a dozen music festivals, and too many hikes, bike rides, and parties to count. And I only recently realized that I had hated it that entire time.
On paper, this Patagonia bag is the platonic ideal of what I need: lightweight, organized, capacious, reasonably stylish, and backed by a lifetime warranty from a reputable brand. But the material is too flimsy for the size leading it to flop around and over itself; lending it the lumpy appearance of a half empty sack of potatoes unless it’s filled to the limit. (I believe this is why they discontinued the bag in this size after only one year on store shelves while its smaller 1 liter sister bag went on to become a perennial bestseller.)
7 years is a long time to spend with a single object you use almost weekly if you don't love it. It's also a long time for a person of our generation to stay in one job. As the 21-year-old deputy editor of Wirecutter, it was my mission to help other people find "the sweet spot of value and function" for "most people" for a given product category. 4 years later looking back, I wonder what I ever meant by that statement. How does one value utility without satisfaction?
What I really wanted was a belted bag that was big enough to carry an e-reader, small enough to be discreet, and minimal enough to pair with a wide array of outfits. (Men will do anything to avoid carrying a purse, I am men.)
I read every roundup listicle on waist/fanny/bum/belt bag I could find, shopped my favorite stores in person, asked people whose taste I trust, and yet, felt no closer to a satisfactory solution. Every option I encountered fell into one of five categories: Too big, too small, too outdoorsy, too tactical, too femme, too shaped like a croissant, etc.
Having exhausted all editorial and relational recommendations, I turned on the fire hose: Nordstrom.com, search "waist pack". Some 20 pages in, I saw it: A belted black rectangle about the size of a letter envelope with a single button clasp, constructed from Issey Miyake's signature pleated fabric. The price? $370.
What is a luxury good? Where does one draw the line? Am I a person who buys luxury goods?
These are questions you can only answer for yourself. For me, at the time, all signs pointed towards frivolity. And yet, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
It looked smaller than what I had been envisioning, but maybe that's a blessing. It was sleek enough that it could easily slip under a sweatshirt and produce no visible bumps—allowing me to cut the ever-stricter bag search lines proliferating among New York's nightlife venues. During more quotidian missions, it could unfold to nearly double its capacity (the perfect size to accommodate a paperback or e-reader). And the stretch afforded by the pleats could further double capacity to accommodate bodega snacks or other spontaneous purchases. It was exactly what I said I needed.
Sometimes, things just cost what they cost. This was not one of those instances. After a couple of weeks of having the tab open, I found it for sale at an LA-based high-end boutique—perhaps best known for reselling $200 vintage Levi's 501s. This being November, I figured a black friday sale was around the corner, and sure enough, for the low cost of my email address and a follow-up click to unsubscribe, a 25% off coupon brought the total to just under $300 shipped. I hadn’t even realized it was the last one in stock until I’d completed the transaction.
These days, I find myself using it a lot less than I had been using my previous Patagonia pack. But that's not a bad thing.
I use the Pleats Please less because I carry less. I carry less because I don't need as much as I thought. The Patagonia could carry more, so I filled it. As a result, I was walking around with a bunch of stuff I didn't need and looked frumpy while doing it. No one ever told me it looked like crap, but I knew.
By comparison, this pleated replacement garners compliments in designated smoking areas all over the city. Inevitably, they will ask where I got it. Unfortunately for them, like the Patagonia before it, this model was discontinued not long after I bought it.1 I can't help them. And I have to admit, delivering this news gives me an entirely different kind of utility.