Kooba helps make backpacks cool again

Depending on who you are, backpacks might be kind of a tough sell. They’re purposefully boyish and perhaps a bit infantilizing, but if you’ve got an edgy personal style and lots of confidence, they can look utilitarian-chic in all the right ways. Having a backpack option as luxe as the Kooba Griffin Drawstring Tote absolutely makes pulling off the look much easier.

Kooba seems to be try to avoid the “backpack” stigma by not using that word to describe this bag, but there’s no getting around exactly what we see in this photo. It’s a backpack, and there’s nothing wrong with that, particularly when you’re spending the day shopping or strolling and you don’t want to have to deal with a regular purse on your arm.

The combination of black leather and silver hardware gives this backpack a bit of a biker-cool feel, which works perfectly with the zillions of pairs of motorcycle boots that have found their way to retail this season. If you find this look a bit too 90s, I can’t blame you, but it’s hard to deny the inherent functionality in this bag’s structure. When my shoulder is sore from carrying a heavy purse for hours of shopping, a backpack doesn’t seem like such a terrible idea. Buy through Neiman Marcus for $575.