Hermès Hac a Dos PM Backpack Handmade In Togo Calfskin Leather Silver Hardware 1K Bambou

Bambou is what happens when a wardrobe of black bags finally gets a day off. I carried it through a whole spring before deciding it was not a stunt but a habit. It is a green with real chlorophyll in it – bright, slightly yellow at the heart, closer to young stems than to moss or pine.

Twenty-eight centimetres of height sits on a compact base, which is a formal way of saying the pack is small, tidy and quick to swing onto one shoulder. My kit for a market Saturday: sunglasses, a paperback, keys, phone and a small canvas pouch that holds the lip balm, plasters and general debris of a city life. The straps have kept their length through a summer of use, and this is the bag I tighten most.

Togo softens the green perfectly – its pebbled surface breaks up the saturation into dozens of tiny highlights, so the colour glows rather than glares, and the silver hardware stays light and almost silver-white against the leaf tones. This is not a bag for funerals, and it has never once pretended otherwise.

The honest trade: a green this alive will not disappear into a formal work wardrobe, and a scuff on it reads as a pale line until you rub it flat with a fingertip. It has also made strangers smile on the escalator, which no black bag has done for me. Accepted on those terms, it gets the most comments and starts the most conversations.