Hermès Hac a Dos PM Backpack Handmade In Togo Calfskin Leather Silver Hardware 8U Blue Glacier

August on a warm train, a linen shirt, and Blue Glacier doing the cooling for both of us – some bags earn their colour in a specific season, and this is a summer one. I bought it for exactly one jacket – a faded denim overshirt – and it has since outgrown that excuse.

Barely eleven inches tall, it hangs high on the back, where a hot city walk feels least effortful. I rotate through the day’s small things: a handheld fan, a half-litre bottle, sunscreen, keys and a phone, with a folded rain jacket wedged on top for evening showers that nobody predicted. Even half full it holds its shape, because Togo has more structure than its softness suggests.

Togo’s pebble surface takes pale colour beautifully – the blue stays powdery rather than saccharine, and the silver hardware adds a cold glint that plays up the coolness. It photographs well without ever looking like it was made for photographs. The scale of the grain suits the colour, too; any larger and the blue would look speckled.

The honest warning concerns sunscreen and hand cream: this leather records smudges, and on a colour this pale they show. Wipe the surface after a day out, avoid storing it against dark fabrics, and it keeps its clarity through many summers. Chosen with those habits in mind, it is the most optimistic bag in my closet. Stored in its dust bag through winter, it comes out every June looking like it never left.