Review: Fullum & Holt Handbag

You may have noticed in my most recent outfits of the day, I traded in my Alexander Wang Donna bag for a Fullum & Holt oversized spiral bag in cream I received from Emmy’s Boutique:

After carrying this bag for about a month pretty much non-stop (the days I didn’t carry it, I regretted it!), I can say that it’s a phenomenal bag. When I first saw Fullum & Holt bags online, I was intrigued, but not in love; the shapes are very “different” and I wasn’t convinced I’d want to carry one for very long. So, I was really interested to see and feel (and carry) the bag in person so I could form my own, more educated, opinion about them. And while I can’t necessarily speak about the other shapes and styles by Fullum & Holt, I’m convinced that this spiral bag will be one of my favorites for a very long time.

Why I love it:

• Lightweight: I love a bag I can stuff my laptop into when I want to go and work somewhere else, and even with my laptop and wallet (which is HUGE), makeup bag, phone, another pouch and odds & ends, this bag didn’t get so heavy it was hard to carry. I wouldn’t necessarily use it as an everyday laptop bag though, I don’t think the leather & stitching was meant to hold up to that much weight.
• Easy to carry: the shoulder strap is lightly padded on the underside which makes it a little easier to bear. But as I mentioned earlier, the bag isn’t really that heavy, so it’s not a huge concern, just a very nice touch. And the strap never ONCE slid off my shoulder. That makes me very happy!! The shoulder strap can be adjusted so you could wear this bag as a messenger, although it still hangs a little too high up for my taste (I like my messenger bags to hang at my hip).
• Holds everything: obviously…this bag is HUGE, so it’s even a great size for an overnight trip if you don’t carry your laptop. There are three inside pockets, one zipper pocket on one side, and two pouch pockets on the other side. I do wish the pockets were a little deeper though, my phone falls out of the one meant to hold your phone, and the zipper pocket could be a little wider & deeper to hold more stuff since there’s not an outside pocket.

I chose the cream color because I don’t have a bag that color in my wardrobe yet, and was interested to see how it would work with my clothing. I love it, and feel like it brings a little “light” to my otherwise black/gray/brown wardrobe, but I HATE that my dark denim has already worn blue spots on the leather. That is no one’s fault but mine – it’s inevitable that you’ll stain lighter bags with dark denim (all of my bags are stained) – I will just need to clean it and try to avoid carrying it with my dark jeans in the future.

Something I feel like the bag is missing – but not missing – is an outside pocket. I say that it’s not missing it because with the spiral design, I don’t see how you can add an outside pocket without messing up the beauty of the design. So, I put stuff I normally put in outside pockets in the inside pockets and all is well…unless I forget and just dump stuff in the bag – then it’s a disaster trying to find anything loose in there!!

All in all, this is one of the most well-designed bags I’ve worn. The spiral is so cool, I love the color, and mostly, I LOVE that I can carry this bag all day and not want to kill myself afterwards. (I did use it the second day of a conference I attended last weekend and was very happy I did)

Buy Fullum & Holt at Emmy’s Boutique for 15% off with code “Grechen15” or for a limited time, use code Emmys100 for $100 off your order of $325 or more (this is better, the bag would be $500 with this code as opposed to $510 with the “Grechen15” code)