Our Portland friend,
Patrick Long, makes a terrific tote under the badge
Chester Wallace . We ordered a few Chester Wallace bags for our web shop in my favorite summer nautical color combination: navy and yellow (for a knitwear example, see these
SNS Herning sweaters for Comme des Garcons).
Chester Wallace tote available through Archival Clothing
A year ago, I saw my first Chester Wallace tote (
in original canvas duck) at
Canoe, a highly curated design shop selling items with a "lasting aesthetic". Jordan Saylor also stocks Patrick's bags at Winn Perry.
Grey waxed twill Chester Wallace totes at Winn Perry
Patrick came up with the design for his tote/carry-all over 20 years ago. He showed us an original sample during a
Spring field trip to his studio.
Patrick w/his ur-tote
I love how the Chester Wallace tote becomes a template for experiments in color and fabric. Every time I see a new color variation or fabric test, I think: this the best one yet. For most of his stock bags, Patrick makes use of the same waxwear waxed cotton fabric Archival Clothing uses for our musettes, totes and rucksacks. However, Patrick is playing w/ textiles like
Schoeller,
Ventile and a stunning, heat sealable, polyurethane fabric used for emergency aircraft slides called
Uretek.
Uretek fabric sample (for blimps and airships)
Denim experiment
The Chester Wallace tote comes with both nylon carry-handle and a detachable shoulder strap. Patrick has equipped the bag with a small external pocket and two internal pockets. All Chester Wallace totes have reinforced seams and come with a heavy duty reinforced nylon bottom--one of the bag's principal visual signatures. The totes are sewn in Portland, Oregon.
Archival Clothing should have our Chester Wallace totes available for sale in our web shop by the end of the week.
Addendum: By day, Patrick works as an accomplished freelance illustrator. In an email, he mentioned that he was busy working on an animated fish for a cat food commercial. Here's another example of his work -- a holiday poster for the Oregon Lottery:
Evidence of a day job
A few months back, the gents from Huge magazine visited Archival to photograph (on film!) our bags for a feature on Oregon manufacturers. We haven't seen the final print publication but our Huge contact, Takuhito K, just posted this preview of the new magazine cover by Illustrator Claudia Pearson. I love seeing all these rugged, made in USA goods rendered as larky line drawings and watercolors. It reminds me of the work of another favorite Archival Illustrator - and Brooklyn denizen -Ryan Blomberg, creator of our original Archival blog banner:
