There is a particular kind of indecision that sets in when two good things answer the same need. Davidoff's Essentials and City Runner lines are a case in point. Both are made to the same standard, in the same full-grain leather, by the same Basel house. Both are intended for the ordinary working day rather than the formal occasion or the long journey. And yet they are built on opposite assumptions about what an ordinary day is, which means that the right one for you is not a matter of taste so much as a matter of honesty about how you actually live between eight in the morning and seven at night.
This guide sets out what each line is for, what each assumes about its owner, and a single test that settles the question more reliably than either volume or price.
Two answers to one question
The question both lines answer is the same: what do I carry on a day that is neither special nor difficult, just Tuesday? The answers diverge because there are two ways to make a carrying object better. One is to take things away until nothing remains that is not needed. The other is to organise what remains so thoroughly that finding anything takes a second. Essentials takes the first route. City Runner takes the second. Neither is a compromise, and neither is the more serious piece. They are simply two temperaments, and most people have a clear leaning toward one of them, whether or not they have ever put it into words.
Essentials: the discipline of removing
Essentials is built by subtraction. Where another design might add a pocket, Essentials asks whether the pocket is needed at all, and usually concludes that it is not. The result is a piece with few pockets, few closures and very little on its exterior to catch the eye or the sleeve of a coat. What it offers instead is a silhouette that stays clean whatever is inside it. A well-cut bag with little internal division does not bulge in odd places when it is full, and does not collapse into folds when it is nearly empty. It holds its line.
The appeal of this is partly aesthetic, but it is mostly practical. Fewer closures means fewer things to open and fewer to fail. Fewer pockets means nothing gets lost in one you forgot existed. A spare interior means you learn where everything sits within a week and never think about it again. And a bag that says nothing about itself is a bag that goes anywhere, from a client meeting to a Saturday errand, without ever looking out of place.
The line is the right choice if three things are true. You carry little: a laptop or a notebook, a wallet, a phone, perhaps a folder, and not much else. You prefer objects that do not announce themselves. And you would rather have one bag that is always right than several that are each right for something. If those describe you, Essentials will feel, within a few days, like the obvious answer.
City Runner: the discipline of organising
City Runner starts from the opposite premise, which is that the day moves and the bag had better keep up. It assumes that its owner will need to reach into it standing up, in a corridor, on a platform, at a counter, with one hand, without setting it down. So it is built with separated compartments, so that a charger does not have to be excavated from under a folder; with quick-access openings, so that a transit pass or a set of keys can be reached without unfastening the whole thing; and with more structure overall, so that it stands open when you need it to and closes cleanly when you are done.
The consequence is more storage, more visible design and a bag that is, unapologetically, a piece of equipment as well as a piece of leather. That is not a criticism. A day that involves two offices, a train, a gym and a dinner is a day that needs equipment, and a beautifully spare bag will spend that day being rummaged through on the floor of a carriage.
City Runner is the right choice if your days are made of movement rather than of desks. If you frequently need something from your bag while walking. If you carry the same small objects every day and want each of them to have a place. And if you find, when you use a simpler bag, that everything migrates to the bottom and stays there. For that owner, structure is not clutter. It is relief.
The mistakes people make
Most people who end up with the wrong line get there by one of two routes.
The first is buying for the exceptional day. Someone who spends four days a week at a desk and one day travelling chooses City Runner because of the travelling day, and then spends four days a week carrying compartments they never open. The reverse also happens: someone with a mobile, fragmented day chooses Essentials for its looks and spends every morning wishing the keys were somewhere else.
The second is buying by volume. It is natural to compare two bags by how much they hold, and natural to conclude that the one that holds more is the safer bet. It is also wrong. A bag that is habitually half empty slumps, loses its shape and ages badly; a bag that is habitually overfilled strains at every seam. Volume tells you how much a bag can carry. It tells you nothing about whether that bag is right for the way you carry.
The test
Here is a better measure, and it costs nothing. For one ordinary working week, count how many times you open your bag between leaving the house in the morning and arriving home in the evening. Not how many things you carry, not how heavy it is, just how often you reach inside.
- If the answer is fewer than three times a day, you open your bag to take something out at your destination and to put it back before you leave. You carry a bag rather than use one, and Essentials is the line for you.
- If the answer is more than three, your bag is part of how you move through the day. You reach for it in transit, at counters, between appointments. That is what City Runner is built for.
The threshold is not arbitrary. Below it, quick access and separated compartments are features you pay for in structure and never use. Above it, a spare interior is a source of daily, minor irritation that never quite goes away. The test works because it measures behaviour rather than intention, and behaviour is what a bag has to live with.
A few refinements
If your count sits very close to three, or if it varies wildly by day, a couple of further questions help.
Ask where you open the bag. If it is almost always on a desk or a table, structure matters less, and Essentials will suit you even at four or five openings a day. If it is almost always in your hand or on your shoulder, City Runner earns its place even at two.
Ask what you reach for. If it is nearly always the same one or two objects, a laptop and a notebook, say, Essentials will serve, because you know exactly where they are. If it is a different small thing each time, a pass, a cable, a pen, a card, then separation is doing real work, and City Runner is the answer.
Ask, finally, whether you mind the bag being noticed. Essentials is designed not to be. City Runner is designed to work, and it looks like it. Neither is the wrong preference, but you should know which one you hold before you choose.
Choosing well
Whichever line the test points to, buy the size that fits an ordinary day rather than an exceptional one, and when torn between two sizes take the smaller. Full-grain leather rewards use; a bag that is carried daily and filled properly will develop the colour and sheen that make it recognisably yours within a year, and a bag that is too large for its owner's life will spend that year slumped in a cupboard. If you leave the shop with the piece you will reach for every morning without thinking about it, you have chosen correctly, and the line it belongs to no longer matters at all.