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Show Your Style With a Briefcase
Briefcases are the traditional accessories for busy
professionals and business people on the go. And for good
reason; briefcases are able to occupy the perfect position
between high functionality and high style. What better way
is there to cart your documents around the city than in a
fine leather briefcase?
The basic briefcase and its variations
The traditional or basic briefcase design is a leather skin
stretched over a metal frame with a hinged compartment. This
traditional design, the one that probably pops into your
mind when you think of a briefcase, is called an attaché,
and is decades old. It first gained in popularity among
diplomatic circles in 10th century Paris. Even today, this
traditional design is the most popular briefcase design out
there, and any advances in style or function are really just
variations on the traditional design.
The traditional material for making briefcases was genuine
leather. These days however, briefcases are made from many
other materials. Aside from genuine leather, popular
materials used in the construction of a briefcase include
synthetic leather, vinyl and nylon.
The most common variation of the traditional briefcase is
the folio case. A folio case is basically just a briefcase
but with a wider compartment. A folio case is therefore
perfect if you have an unusually large number of documents
to ferry somewhere. If you are doing this frequently, you
should consider getting a folio case with a retractable
handle and wheels.
Current briefcase trends
The most fashionable briefcases today have moved away from
the traditional box shape to a more relaxed bag-like
structure. These bags will often forgo the traditional
hinged compartment structure and instead rely on a flap
enclosure that fastens to the side of the briefcase.
These briefcases will also usually have an optional shoulder
strap, an additional that would be unheard of on a
traditional briefcase. These newer style briefcases are
sometimes called brief bags, shoulder bags, or courier bags.
Another change from the traditional briefcase design has
been the move towards accommodating laptops and other
electronic devices such as Blackberries and cell phones. The
first laptop bags were strictly functional vinyl bags that
cared little for aesthetics.
Today however, there are numerous high end laptop bags on
the market that rival the sophistication and styling of a
traditional briefcase. Designers of briefcases have learned
that for modern professionals, their laptop is usually the
most important focus of their work and the item that needs
to be moved around from home to office far more than the
occasional sheet of paper.
Modern briefcases that are designed for laptops will often
include a special pocket inside the compartment where the
laptop can be securely stowed, as well as extra padding
around the laptop to protect it from the occasional bump or
the dreaded fall. Another movement in contemporary
briefcases is to have a multitude of pockets and other
attachments on the outside of the briefcase in order to
secure the owner’s host of electronic gadgetry. Once again,
an advancement that goes against the sleek and streamlined
aesthetic of traditional briefcases.
By Steve Dolan << back
Laptop
Accessories Buying Guide
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