Heading back to the office and our routine shouldn’t mean reverting to our old wardrobe. At least, not entirely. Now is the best time to reassess our essentials, starting with that one item that will reliably carry you – and your stuff – through your work week. A form-meets-function bag that can make the daily commute feel that bit more bearable and certainly a whole lot more stylish. In need of some inspiration? Here are some carriers that also pack a punch.

Italians like to talk. To each other, to anyone, anywhere. We commend them for this. But they also know when to keep schtum. They can famously hold entire conversations using their hands instead of their mouths. And, based on the evidence put forward on the shelves of MR PORTER, they can also use restraint in the way they communicate with their clothes.

“Putting your lead in Carhartt gives the audience something recognisable,” says Adam Cheung, style writer at British GQ. “It tells you this isn’t some superhero or billionaire genius. It’s just a normal dude trying to get through an extraordinary situation.” Cinema has a habit of slinging normal dudes into extraordinary situations. See Ryan Gosling’s science teacher turned astronaut in Project Hail Mary. Or take The Dog Stars, Ridley Scott’s upcoming post-apocalyptic sci-fi film, set in the aftermath of a – wait for it – flu pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity. Only the normal dude in this scenario happens to be Jacob Elordi.

The world has changed a lot in the last 100 years. In fact, it took less than 70 years to go from the first powered flight to landing on the Moon. We put wheels on suitcases. We’ve had nine different (live action) Batman films. If you asked an economist to explain this last century, they might look at a graph of real GDP. An engineer could consider the development of semiconductors. What if instead we looked at the evolution of trousers?

Heading back to the office and our routine shouldn’t mean reverting to our old wardrobe. At least, not entirely. Now is the best time to reassess our essentials, starting with that one item that will reliably carry you – and your stuff – through your work week. A form-meets-function bag that can make the daily commute feel that bit more bearable and certainly a whole lot more stylish. In need of some inspiration? Here are some carriers that also pack a punch.

Italians like to talk. To each other, to anyone, anywhere. We commend them for this. But they also know when to keep schtum. They can famously hold entire conversations using their hands instead of their mouths. And, based on the evidence put forward on the shelves of MR PORTER, they can also use restraint in the way they communicate with their clothes.