Hermes Kelly Ado Backpack Handmade In Togo Calfskin Leather Gold Hardware ck18 Etoupe

I took this Ado on a two-week trip with three flights and two trains, and it never once looked wrong. Taupe does that: it photographs the same in a taxi and on a terrace, it matches every jacket I packed, and the straps have a way of staying put that cheaper backpacks never quite manage.

The same compact 22-centimetre body as its siblings, pebbled Togo all over, with gold hardware giving the taupe a trace of warmth. The flap is a proper Kelly flap, and reaching back over a shoulder to unlatch it becomes second nature within a day.

Phone, passport, a card case and a novel for the flight all fit. At the gate it swaps onto my front with the straps shortened, which is the detail I appreciate most when traveling, and the small things I do not want to think about ride along without rattling. It also flattens down to nothing in a suitcase on the days I switch to a handbag.

The honest wear note: shoulder straps are where a backpack ages first, and mine has taken a soft sheen at the strap tabs after a season of use. It looks like honest wear rather than damage, but it is the tabs, not the bag, that set the clock. The colour, meanwhile, has stayed as even as the day it arrived, which after a summer of use is saying something.

It has also passed the hardest test I know: I never wished it were a different bag mid-trip.