After 10 samples and 2.5 years, I present to you: The Weekender
If you're new here, welcome! If you've been here awhile, you know how much I love sharing the creation story behind Freja bags. Today I wanted to share a deep dive on every design consideration of our first travel bag design.
It's launching next week -- I hope you love it as much as I do.
As you know we approach every design from the inside out, so here were the priorities for this particular design:
- Must fit under an airplane seat
- Must have a luggage sleeve
- Multiple pockets that are sized to fit passports / boarding passes
- Must have a zipper
- Separate compartment for laptop / electronics for breezing through security
- Multiple ways to carry
- Must be (somewhat) lightweight — tough due to the sheer size of the bag, but I’m really happy with the final result :)
A front sleeve fits up to 16” laptops, but note that it will not button with a larger laptop. This was a design consideration as I wanted to prioritize the bag fitting under an airplane seat (if we made it any bigger it would be too tall).
I’ve traveled with the Weekender constantly and never worried about this — if your bag is otherwise full, the laptop fits very snugly (and makes it easy to breeze through security)!
I understand this is not for everyone, so you can always tuck your laptop away in the interior!
Of course, a luggage trolley sleeve is a must and truly makes traveling so much easier.
As a bonus, I include 2 pockets on the side of the sleeve. The 2 pockets are sized for your passport or boarding pass if you wanted to tuck it here. This is the side of the bag that's closest to you, for security reasons.
The handles are an ideal length to hand carry, and just long enough to wear on your shoulder in a pinch. I didn't optimize for shoulder carrying though as it would be quite heavy.
Also includes a wide long strap that you can clip onto the sides for more comfortable shoulder wear.
The weekender is the perfect height to slide under airplane seats, or in the overhead compartment. Our travel cases also stack perfectly on the inside :)
The interior features 2 buttoned pockets that fit your passport, and 3 open pockets for everything else. Take a peek on the product pages to see these up close!
