The second in our series of items that will get you arrested, the “greenaid” answers the pressing question, “How do I carry around a spare bag without using handles?” and the even more pressing question, “How can I scare the bejezus out of the people behind me in line at Whole Foods?”

Think of it as killing two birds with one grenade.

A well-worn leather briefcase is practically a badge of honor among the business class, but it makes it hard to sate our appetite for new thing. That is, unless you’re handy with an awl.

Portland’s Entermodal Leather has an interesting take on the problem. When you get one of their hand-stitched bags (currently at Odin, you get a handy leatherworker along with the bargain. He’ll restitch the seams, reinforce the frame, or whatever you require. More interestingly, if you decide on a change of style—maybe even a few wallets instead of an overnighter—they’ll take the same wonderfully worn leather and remake it into something entirely new.

Well, maybe not entirely.

If you were wondering about the legacy of those Tom Ford ads…we might have something.

The German exotica shop Condomi must have decided their old bags weren’t eye-catching enough, so they designed totes depicting thong-clad crotches, with a particularly well-placed handle. It’s a good way to spread word of mouth, but we can’t help but wonder how many of their more timid customers are turning down bags at the register.

And if this is what they do with a bag, we’d hate to think what they do with a billboard…

More goodies from CES, thanks to our friends at Energi-to-Go:

One of the sleeper themes at CES was the rise of the designer laptop sleeve…but we can’t say we love where this is headed.

The Finnish brand Golla led the pack with a few enormous Bowie-inspired posters and a whole lot of very expensive marketing. They tend to be a bit too fond of flowers and all those bright colors are Scandanavian enough to overpower the usual slate gray laptop, but it’s probably step above most of the laptop bags out there.

Still, it does look an awful lot like something you’d find at a Best Buy…

See what Golla has to offer»

The dig on Thom Browne has always been that he’s all business—compared to his polar opposite Tom Ford, who seems to just comb his chest hair all day—so it’s no surprise that Browne would turn his eye to business accessories at some point.

The attaché case has been a standard of white collar American workers for going on fifty years now, but it’s hard to name a designer who’s paid it more attention than Mr. Browne. This one may be one of his more important creations this year. It’s all black leather on the outside, but if you open it up you’ll see where his head’s at: the lining is red, white, and blue.

The folks at Jack Spade have come up with an interesting twist on their usual bags: passport covers inscribed with a quick story to get you through the customs line.

It’s a pretty good idea, and we’re always glad to see fiction get into more places, but we can’t help but wonder, will it hold up the fourth time you’re passing through the airport?

We’ve always had a soft spot for canvas. Whether it’s work coats or oil paintings, it’s nice to have a tougher kind of cloth around.

This kind of bag is nothing new, but it’s usually either leather or synthetic fiber, which makes it either too delicate to leave to an airport baggage handler or too cheap to take any pride in. The texture’s hard to take in from a distance, but we’d say this one manages to find a happy medium.

We saw Killspencer on UrbanDaddy a few days ago, but sometimes it takes a bit of video to get our attention.

The west-coast marque makes bags out of discontinued military tarps—not a bad gimmick, but a little advertising never hurt anyone. So we were even more impressed when we ran across this video, we were understandably intrigued.

We could have done with a little less racking focus…but nobody’s perfect. The music (made from the rhythmic clicks and whirrs of a sewing machines) and the shots of the merchandise (always in quick shots or very close up) add up to a surprisingly effective spot that shows very little of the actual merchandise.

Of course, if people want to see what’s for sale, they can always look at the website. Like most spots, all this one really needs to get across is excitement.

See the video»

Chinese Democracy: Complex surveys the female talents of the Middle Kingdom. [Complex]

Tally Ho: We can never get enough nautical ephemera. [Selectism]

Bennesquire: Esquire struggles valiantly to make Ben Affleck interesting, and succeeds. If you only read one celebrity profile this week… [Esquire]

The Pack: Packing a suitcase is now a spectator sport, and Mismo comes out looking pretty good. [h(y)r collective]

The duffel bag has a long way to go if it’s going to come back into style. But this isn’t a bad start…

These particular items come from our friends at Norsea Industries, and we’re ready to call them the beginning of the duffel revival. Trading industrial performance cloth for warm, vintage-looking fabrics and a healthily grungy approach to color, they end up with what the duffel bag always should have been: a casual approach to luggage.

See more of the bags»

Laptop sleeves usually stick to neoprene and the occasional hard-plastic shell, so when someone takes a few steps in the briefcase direction, we take notice.

This particular model comes from the Aussie firm Toffee Cases, which took the simple but critical steps of giving the average 13-inch case a textured leather exterior and—most importantly—a handle.

It’s all in the details…

It’s easy to overthink bags. Sometimes all you need is a leather sack…

Apparently the fine folks at Mjolk are partial to the sack theory of storage, at least judging by their latest rucksack. It’s not exactly suited to air travel—we’d want a more secure top flap, for one—but it should do perfectly backpacking or thrown in the trunk of a car.

With no pockets to get in the way, the material is on full display, and like most high quality leather, it’ll get better the longer you have it.

And no, it doesn’t come with wheels.

Of course, we prefer all-leather satchels, but if you’re looking for something a bit less fragile, this canvas and leather stowaway bag (via SwipeLife) should do the trick.

The staid green is our favorite for a touch of the old-world luggage feeling (i.e. what Louis Vuitton was into before they discovered branding) and the reverse clasps are a clever way to set it apart from the usual satchels.

But if you’re interested, you’d better strike while the pound is low.

Japan’s Porter has been building steam as a cult brand for some time now, but even after a Monocle collab and a string of gushing writeups, their bags are still pretty hard to get a hold of. We were set to hype up a shipment that just landed in Seattle’s Blackbird, but the two-way briefcase we were looking for already sold out. We’re not quite up on our economic lingo, but we believe that’s referred to as “demand.”

Outside of boutique shipments, your best bet is to brave overseas shops like this one with a little help from Google Translate. And like a lot of cult goods, it’s still relatively cheap…at least before you add in shipping costs.

Unlike dress shirts, a messenger bag only gets better with the occasional stain. It’s not damage; it’s character.

Of course, a little waxed cotton helps. These Earnest Alexander messenger bags (via Refinery29) aren’t blowing any minds, but it’s good to have a source for rugged satchels that just happens to stitch them together in New York—a locale with more than its share of style locavores.

Just be sure it doesn’t match your jacket.

No sooner had we gushed about the impeccable mystique of the Japanese bagmakers at Porter than we caught wind of their latest creation: a mesh gym bag.

It’s not a bad item—in fact, it’s probably one of the better gym bags we’ve seen—but nothing punctures mystique like cotton mesh. We were hoping for a catalog full of sleek black briefcases and seamless nylon bags. Adding a string-strapped semi-tote to their repertoire makes the whole enterprise seem a whole lot less monolithic.

On the other hand, you’ll still have to pay for it in yen, so we’d say their cult brand cred is still firmly intact.

If you were looking for a new bike, you’ve probably already found it by now. But we’re guessing it could use a few accessories…

These saddlebags from Brooks come via the UK, where bike culture has been in bloom for a bit longer, so they’ve got a few tricks you might not expect. For one, they can fold into inconspicuous rolls when you’re not using them, only to unfurl the minute you’ve got groceries to haul.

And of course, it’s always good to have a bit more waxed cotton around.

Whether it’s a wedding or a beach trip, odds are you’ll be hitting the road at some point in the next few weeks, with a well-chosen two-day supply of clothing securely in tow. And while your bag options are vast and many-splendored, we’d like to throw this waxed cotton duffel from Jack Spade into the ring.

It’s smaller than the “duffel” tag might lead you to believe—just over two feet from end to end—and the outside is an unbroken swath of the waxed cotton that you may have seen on a jacket or two. There are pockets on the inside for your razor and toothbrush, but the outside is as simple as a beach weekend would suggest.

Summer’s days may be numbered, but we finally came across the perfect getaway bag.

This Porter carry-all blends linen, rayon and cotton for a material that’s not that far from your favorite August button-up, then stitches it all up into the kind of weekender bag that’s just begging to be thrown into the back seat of a beach-bound car. It’s not quite as indestructible as their canvas offerings…but you’ll only need it to last through Labor Day.

The New York Daily News chose today to delve into the treacherous world of the man bag, and the results were every bit as spectacular as you would expect. It looks like they wandered around Union Square for half an hour with a camera man, but great photosets have been put together with less. Especially when they contain pictures like this one.

This gentleman’s Leonello Borghi pack is pretty much the murse personified. From the outsized proportions to the flamboyant fringe, it’s what every straight man worries about when he sets out bag shopping. It also makes the gentleman in question look like he’s trying to smuggle a baby sheepdog onto the 6 train.

To be fair, the photoset does show off some handsome, non-ridiculous satchels from Filson, 3.1 Philip Lim and Banana Republic, but they all get upstaged by the fearless lunacy of Mr. Borghi. Shine on, you crazy bag man.

The rules of the flight bag are pretty simple: Keep it slim and keep it simple. If you do it well, you’ve got a

And in this case, BillyKirk did it very well indeed. This flight bag brings together waxed cotton and beautifully worn leather trim for a one of the better carryalls we’ve seen this year (at least of the ones that didn’t say Filson on them). Luckily, the retro vibe didn’t stop them from sizing it just large enough for a laptop.

But it should fit in that overhead compartment.

Last time we checked in with Hard Graft, they were reinventing the wallet with a little help from raw felt, but it looks like they’ve been plenty busy in the year since.

Today, they unveiled their latest creation, a gray leather satchel that can transform into a laptop case, a portfolio or a weekender bag. It’s called the 3Fold, and depending on how you button, snap and fold it, it can be perfect for anything from a coffee shop run to a weekend in the country. Hopefully the leather’s tough enough to stand up to all that creasing, but in the meantime you’ll get a little extra use out of the day-tripping bag that usually sits in the back of your closet.

If you’re suffering over your bag choices as much as Guy Trebay is, we may be able to offer some assistance. Don’t worry, it involves waxed cotton.

Previous Killspencer creations focused on rescuing great fabrics from the trash pile—specifically disused military tarpaulins, conditioned to withstand just about anything—but this time around, for the Classic Collection, it’s a little more basic: a black filter twill recipe dug up from military outfitters circa 1837, treated with water repellant wax and stitched into everything from a weekender satchel to a briefcase.

The collection hit the online store launched this morning for your browsing pleasure, and while you won’t find any day-to-day totes, but we’re guessing this utility bag would make a pretty good substitute.

There are a lot of bags out there, but we’ve always thought less was more. Which means if you’ve got a bundle with you—maybe a few books, a notebook and an iPod—it may be easier to strap them together into an easy-to-carry brick, possibly with this Australian device. It’s a minimal solution, sure…but those are usually the best ones.

Nobody likes a grouchy critic, but if you put those same sentiments on a tote bag, you can get away with just about anything.

Case in point: this cloth sack modeled off a John Baldessari lithograph, currently on sale at the Tate Modern. If you can’t make out the cursive, it reads “I will not make boring art,” scrawled out a mind-numbing 26 times on each side.

That should teach him…