David Jones yellow fabric shoulder bag

What fits in a 20x17 cm bag

Phone, cards, keys, a lipstick if you push it. That is the honest answer, and it explains why this shape suits short trips, not long days: an hour on a terrace, a market, the walk to the station. Small is a deliberate choice here, and the smaller and larger crossbody shapes sit side by side, which makes the difference easy to judge.

A crossbody bag in yellow checked fabric

Two colours carry the whole front. Yellow sits underneath, ivory lines cross it, solid down the panel and broken into dashes across it, so the squares they draw are large and a little irregular. In the bottom right corner there is a small rectangular tab, yellow inside a brown stitched border, placed where the grid would otherwise carry on.

Fringe along the whole top edge

It does not hang down the front. The fringe is sewn into the top seam and continues round, so there is as much of it on the back of the bag as on the front. Most strands are yellow, a few ivory ones picking up the lines in the weave. Reach for the opening and your hand goes through it, which matters as much to how the bag feels as to how it looks.

The strap unclips at both ends

It is a wide woven band, checked in yellow and brown, held on by two metal snap hooks. Take them off and what remains is a soft pouch. A slider sits partway along the band, and that is what sets the drop: high under the arm, or down on the hip.

Living with a pale woven fabric

Yellow and ivory show the marks, there is no getting round it. A soft brush worked along the weave lifts most of what settles there. The fringe is simpler than it looks: run your fingers through, straighten the strands that have twisted, and it falls back into line. Hang the bag by its strap rather than folding it into a drawer, and the fringe keeps its shape between outings.

Fabric, strap and measurements

Set out plainly:

Whatever will not fit either stays behind or travels in the larger shapes in the bags department.