Mueslii: Less Granola, More Backpack
We generally try to stay with items that are widely available, or at least ones that you can purchase online without too much trouble. Every now and then, though, we aim for something a bit harder to find, typically from beyond our shores. To New Zealand we looked, and found some of the neatest-looking bags. For those who want something different, we can pretty much guarantee that you won’t catch another one of these on the streets (for a while at least!)
Now, we’ve seen our fair share of backpacks- serious hiking versions, ones with built-in hydration, and ones for photographers. But we haven’t seen anything quite like the Rotorua bags from Mueslii, a line separated into two collections, one with horizontal puffs and the other with vertical ones.
We received one from each, and it took only a few days to receive them safely from halfway across the globe. Ours were glossy Byzantium and matte Chocolate, but one of the things we loved were the various color options- Dark Sienna, Golden Poppy, and Egyptian Blue for example. We took them out to the streets, cute pine tree logo visible, and were happily surprised at the number of compliments on both.
Zippers are solid, as is stitching, but these are fashionable, compact bags. You can’t fit more than a couple of days worth of clothing or a few books, and the straps aren’t particularly well-padded so you don’t want to overpack. Slightly ironically, items inside are quite well protected though, both from light rains and small drops. There also aren’t a lot of pockets detracting from the style- in fact, there are no external pockets at all. But we really liked the velcro-flapped internal pocket, perfect for phones and change and such. So many bags offer headphone pass-throughs and water bottle pockets though that we did find ourselves missing them.
Of course, with shipping and the exchange rate, these might be a bit more expensive than your average bags: Collection 1 is 70€, and Collection 2 is 80€, plus tax, and shipping can be upwards of 18€- altogether, you’re looking at more than $100 each. But we think it’s worth it for well-designed fashion, and hope to see Mueslii make it across to our shores in the near future.
