I Breeze Through TSA With My PPBPB
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I bought my Topologie Phone Sacoche 90 on a trip to Tokyo last August, where it seemed like every second store was selling some sort of rock-climbing-inspired fashion item. Topologie’s wares were the most appealing; the French Japanese brand makestravel bagswith clip-on rope straps that are sold separately, allowing you to customize their color and length. I’ve never scaled a rock face in my life, but the U.S. dollar was strong against the yen and I was feeling open to frivolous, trend-based purchases. Ten months later, I think I’ll be using this bag long after the climbercore boom goes bust.
That’s because it has become my default phone-passport-boarding-pass bag. Shaped like a folding document wallet and made out of splashproof nylon fabric, it’s the perfect airport organizer, being discreetly sized to store my travel documents, iPhone Pro Max, credit cards, and cash. In other words, all of the small but valuable items that I’d be too anxious to toss into a largerbackpack.
The Sacoche 90 has four compartments (two on the inside, two on the outside, and you can unfold the bag and lay it flat for easy access to everything), three of them zippered and one with a simple button closure (this one’s ideal for slipping a phone in and out of). All of this compartmentalization makes it easy to separate cash and coins in different currencies, as well as the various paper bits that one accumulates on the road — museum tickets, hotel key cards, metro stubs, visa photos. It creates a system that’s way more effective than what I was doing before, which was stuffing everything into the black hole that is Baggu’s crossbodynylon crescent bag.
Since purchasing it, I’ve taken my PPBPB to at least six airports and also kept it by my side on a train trip across India in January, where it kept me organized in moments of complete platform chaos. And after spotting a fair few fellow Topologie heads on the streets of New York lately (the brand opened its first U.S. store late last year in Soho), I’ll probably be using it to carry essentials as I frolic around Brooklyn this summer too.
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Topologie Phone Sacoche 90
My phone-passport-boarding-pass bag.
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I went with the rope strap but am contemplating the additional purchase of abungee-cord one.
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The brand also makes this larger bag that has space for a water bottle.
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And while I have you, this is the (coincidentally also Japanese) notebook I travel with. It slips into any of the Topologie Phone Sacoche’s compartments with room to spare.
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