courier bag meets man-purse

It seems the fashion industry's eternal quest to sell us something we didn't know we need has succeeded once again.

There have been many attempts over the past decade or so to come up with a product men could be convinced to buy to carry their essentials to and from work. There comes a time in life when the college back-pack just won't do anymore; we just can't carry that into the board room and have our gym clothes and lunch spill out as we retrieve our laptop.

Man-purses (murses) have been around for years but they have little utility beyond carrying things that we have always carried in our pockets; cell phone and keys. Not large enough for the morning newspaper we read on the subway or the smallest netbook (which itself is useless at the office) and definitely not large enough for lunch, gym clothes and sneakers. Murse sales just have never achieved critical mass.

Briefcases are so last century, I'm not sure they're even sold anymore and, in any case, the nice ones suffered the same limitations as the murse.

Courier bags have served as a classier version of the college back-pack, same materials (no animals killed in their manufacture), room for a notebook computer, phone, keys, lunch and gym gear, all so well organised we could safely open them in public. Plus they are made to be carried over one shoulder to avoid wrinkling shirts [do not wear the shoulder strap across your chest ever, the resulting "man tits" on even the fittest specimens demand we not go there]. And yes, courier bags have achieved near ubiquity, but always with an aura of geekiness or not having quite grown up.

Over the past few months I have seen more and more of a hybrid between the murse and the courier bag. Smaller courier bags made of more elegant materials (leather (faux and real), canvas trimmed with leather), often bearing prestige designer labels [Mountain Equipment Co-op may be a designer and have its own label but it suggests you are going canoeing and not down Bay Street]. These new bags can easily hold keys, smartphone and a netbook or an iPad. No room for lunch, but only losers carry their lunch; that's what restaurants are for and besides, the serving class needs the jobs. The only drawback I can see is that there is no room for the workout gear. Are we supposed to workout in our condo gym before heading out to the office? Are we supposed to have the perfect body because of our genes and never really every have to work out? Maybe all those unused overnight storage lockers at the gym finally will find renters.

Testifying to the success of this new fashion accessory, a stroll through The Bay revealed a section devoted to their sale as large as that devoted to shirts and ties. It rivalled the women's hand-bags section in size if not the number of offerings. Maybe men don't want too get to close to one another as they shop for such a personal accessory. And the prices - well let's just not go there.

But to really take over the market, we need a better name. Men's shoulder bag doesn't quite make it. Suggestions anyone?