Donna Aléssia Pastel Multicolor Backpack

A backpack with two silver handles and clip-on straps

The handles sit close together at the top, short enough to keep the bag tucked against you when you hold it. The straps attach separately, each ending in a silver swivel clasp that hooks onto the rim, so the same bag reads as a hand-held shape one minute and a backpack the next. To see how that height compares, have a look at how this shelf lines up its shorter and deeper shapes.

Inside: a pale lining, one zipped pocket, one flat one

Open the zip and there is one compartment, not a set of them. The lining is a pale beige that lifts the bottom of the bag, so you can actually see what is in there instead of feeling around. One wall takes a pocket that closes with its own small zip; the wall opposite has a flat open pocket, the sort you use for whatever you keep reaching for.

Behind the sky blue flap, a zip across the full width

The flap folds forward over the top of the bag and carries a white tab stitched down the middle, finishing in a silver ring with a small eyelet pull hanging from it. What actually shuts the bag is the zip that runs the full width, its silver slider parked on the left. Everything on the front keeps the same veined grain, an uneven surface that stops the pale tones looking flat.

Where it fits into a day

Held by the handles it works like any top-handle bag, for a walk to the shops or a lunch out. Clipped onto the shoulders it frees both hands, which is the version that earns its keep on a commute or a long afternoon in town. What else the Donna Aléssia label puts together this way follows the same habit of splitting a front into two or three tones.