Will the rear zipper on this messenger bag wear out my clothes?

January 14, 2015 5:27 AM

For $December_Holiday I got what I think is a Jack Spade Commuter Nylon Site Messenger bag mainly because I've been waffling over which new bag to get for the past two years. It was purchased from one of their NY stores so I can pretty easily exchange it for a different one, my one concern is that it has a fairly chunky zipper across the rear. I know I can't put anything like an ipad inside because the zipper isn't covered on the inside and it will scratch it, so the rear compartment is useless. Do you think a chunky zipper will wear through my jacket/shirts/pants as it rubs? Or am I making a big deal out of nothing?

(Why Jack Spade's website has so little product detail and very few photos is beyond me.)

posted by Brian Puccio to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (3 answers total)

In my experience, this is a problem more for lofty or loosely woven fabrics and when the bag is heavily loaded - my wool winter coat, for example, has a big worn patch due to my bag's hardware. I would expect wool or chunkier denim (rather than tightly woven, thinner denim) to get worn; other fabrics, not so much. Of course, one reason my coats get worn patches is because I walk or bike long distances carrying the bag, which causes it to rub against the fabric more - if you're looking at shorter distances and lighter weight stuff, this probably won't be a big deal.

But with a useless rear compartment, why not see if you can exchange it anyway?
posted by Frowner at 5:53 AM on January 14, 2015

Anecdotally, my husband had one of those "metal" wallets, and after about eight months of use and wearing the same jeans nearly every day (dudes...), it absolutely did wear a wallet-shaped hole through his back pocket. If you're going to wear the bag daily, I'd consider this a design flaw.
posted by juniperesque at 5:55 AM on January 14, 2015

Anecdata:

1. My small leather satchel is busy wearing a hole through the pocket area of my wool overcoat, and that's just flat leather in contact, not a metal zip.

2. It took relatively few months of wearing a watch with a metal bracelet (which might be similar in abrasiveness tova zipper?) to fray all my shirt cuffs just on the arm I wear the watch on.

So, yeah, I'd certainly be concerned about it.
posted by Dext at 7:27 AM on January 14, 2015