I’m a self-loathing lover of stuff.

Which is a slightly inconvenient thing to be when you spend quite so much of your life looking at it, talking about it and occasionally explaining to yourself why you need another bit of it.

I like good stuff. Things someone has thought about. Things that are well made, do their job properly and get better as you use them. The problem is that you can accumulate an awful lot of very good stuff without actually needing most of it.

I’ve spent the last few months clearing out a house in Scotland. That gives you plenty of time to think about possessions. Particularly while carrying them down the stairs.

So when Bleu de Chauffe offered me a bag to review, my first instinct was to say no. I already had a rucksack. A very good one, as it happens.

There was, however, a small problem. Well, several fairly large holes.

When it’s actually time to buy something

My old rucksack is about fifteen years old. It’s been to more countries than I can count, carried whatever I’ve asked it to carry and generally got on with the job.

It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever owned.

Was it the best rucksack in the world? Almost certainly not. But it was the best rucksack for me, which is considerably more useful.

Unfortunately, even something you love eventually needs repairing. I took it to half a dozen places, all of whom decided they would rather not get involved. Apparently, my much-loved bag was quite a pain in the arse.

So I needed a replacement. And that, for me, is when buying something new makes sense.

Use what you have. Repair it if you can. When you genuinely need to replace it, take your time and buy something you really want to live with. If you can’t get that thing yet, wait.

I’d been waiting years for this bag.

Ten days, Berlin and about 8.5 kilos

The bag in question is the Bleu de Chauffe Chiloé. I’ve been using it every day for about ten days, going back and forth to the studio here in Berlin.

Inside: a 16-inch MacBook, a camera, hard drives, a notebook, a flask of coffee and the usual assortment of things that apparently need to accompany me everywhere.

About 8.5 kilos altogether. Quite frankly, more than I’d like to be carrying.

You find out fairly quickly whether a bag is comfortable when you put that much in it. So far, this one is doing very well.

My old rucksack took its inspiration from bags of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. I like that sort of thing, obviously. But there has been some useful development in carrying things over the last seventy or eighty years.

The Chiloé feels like someone has paid attention to that. The way it sits, the way the straps work, the way the weight is carried. It feels like a bag made by people who spend a great deal of time thinking about bags.

Which, given the company, is reassuring.

A sensible number of pockets

There’s something of a messenger bag about it, and something of an old photographer’s bag. That probably explains a fair bit of the attraction.

It also has a sensible number of pockets.

I don’t want twenty-seven compartments, each containing something I can no longer find. I want to open the bag, see my things and take out the thing I need. Preferably on the first attempt.

There are two deep pockets on the front, while the main compartment takes my daily load comfortably. My 16-inch MacBook fits into the laptop compartment with room to spare.

There’s also a small removable pouch and a pencil-case pocket. The pouch attaches to a flap you can pull up towards the opening, bringing the contents to you instead of making you rummage around at the bottom. A very nice idea, although I do have a small complaint about it. We’ll get to that.

The cloth, the leather and the bits holding it together

The canvas is substantial. Somewhere around 690 to 700 grams per square metre, so there’s a fair amount of it. But it’s been stonewashed, which takes away that stiff, new-bag feeling. It’s thick cloth that’s already comfortable against your body.

I’d assumed I would need to wax it. So far, I haven’t felt the need. Despite being unwaxed, it’s proved surprisingly water resistant in daily use—much closer to my experience of a waxed cotton bag than I expected.

The leather is full-grain and vegetable-tanned. Quite stiff when it arrived, already starting to soften up nicely.

I particularly like the leather binding. It gives the bag its shape and defines the edges. Doubling over the canvas would presumably have been an easier, cheaper way to finish those areas, but I’m pleased they went to the trouble.

The shoulder straps combine sturdy cotton webbing with leather at the points that take the wear. Their central attachment spreads the load well across the top of my shoulders, the pads stay where they belong, and there’s plenty of adjustment.

Inside, everything is tidy. I haven’t found a loose thread. There are leather tabs and D-rings for attaching a shoulder strap, and a brass fastening that appears to be part snap, part buckle.

I’ve decided to call it the snuckle.

Until someone gives me a better name, that’s what we’re going with.

A few things I’d change

It’s a beautiful bag. I’m very pleased to have it. There are still a few things I’d improve.

Something to hold the laptop in place

The laptop compartment needs a closure. A strap, a tab, something simple to keep the computer where it belongs.

It accommodates the MacBook very nicely, but I’d feel happier knowing there was something stopping it from sliding out of its compartment.

The removable pouch

I like the idea of bringing the pouch up to the opening. In practice, once I’ve loaded it with a laptop adapter or a couple of hard drives, it tends to flop back inside while I’m packing.

It’s a small annoyance, but it’s one I keep encountering. I’m not entirely sure what the solution is. I can identify the irritating bit; I’ll leave the bag design to the people who know what they’re doing.

A possible problem with the snuckle

The fastening feels solid. My concern is the bracket behind it: a bent metal plate with fairly sharp edges at the top.

My wife had a bag with a similar arrangement, and over time those edges wore through the canvas. Looking at this one, I wonder whether the same thing might eventually happen.

That’s a concern, rather than something that has actually gone wrong. Ten days tells you very little about that sort of wear.

It also looks as though the fitting could be removed and refitted fairly easily if a repair became necessary. Hopefully, I’ll never need to find out.

The best backpack in the world?

It would be a bit much to declare this the best backpack in the world after ten days.

Ask me in fifteen years. Apparently, that’s how long I take to properly review a rucksack.

What I can say is that it’s comfortable under a substantial load, thoughtfully put together and, to my eye, a very beautiful thing. I enjoy using it. I enjoy looking at it. And I can see myself carrying it for a very long time.

That’s what I wanted from a replacement.

The old bag earned its place by being useful, day after day, for fifteen years. This one has made a very good start. Now it needs to get on with the job.

And I need to stop looking at bags.

Want one?

You can find the Bleu de Chauffe Chiloé here. There are other colours, too, along with a fairly extensive range of bags. Make of that temptation what you will.

If there’s something you actually need, the CeeAreDee sales list has also had an update. Some very good things on there, at rather better prices.

And you can sign up for the newsletter if you’d like to hear about new posts. I promise not to spam you. My current strategy of almost never sending one has proved remarkably effective.

Bleu de Chauffe provided this bag for review. Some links are affiliate links; if you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.