What it is made of
Vegan leather, canvas, and what each one does
Two materials run through the Keyli range and they behave differently enough to decide which bag you want.
Vegan leather is a coated fabric. It wipes clean, it keeps a square shape when the bag is empty, and rain sits on the surface long enough to get indoors. It also creases at the fold lines rather than softening, so a bag that lives crushed under a desk will show it.
Canvas does the opposite. It softens, it takes a stain rather than shrugging it off, and it goes light: a canvas tote of the same size weighs noticeably less in the hand. Where a line exists in both, the card says which one you are looking at.
What neither material is: real leather. The range is vegan throughout, and nothing here is described as anything else.
What the range does not do
Three honest limits, because a page of unbroken approval is an advertisement.
Nothing here is real leather, and nothing here will patinate. If you want a bag that looks better in five years than it does new, this is the wrong shelf.
The work totes are cut for a fifteen-inch machine. A seventeen-inch gaming laptop does not go in, and forcing it stretches the sleeve for good.
And these are not rain bags. The coating holds a shower on the way to a car. A day in real weather gets through the seams and the zip, and the lining takes the water.
Four habits that keep a bag square
Empty it before it goes down. A coated bag creases where it folds, and it folds where the weight sits. Two minutes of emptying before it goes under the desk is the difference between a bag that keeps its shape for a year and one that sags in a month.
Wipe, do not soak. A damp cloth takes marks off coated fabric. Soaking swells the backing and lifts the coating at the seams, and no amount of drying puts it back.
Stuff it when it is stored. A bag stored empty collapses into its own creases. Any soft filling holds the shape, and the handles keep their curve if they are not squashed flat.
The strap wears first. On every bag here the strap takes the whole load through two small rings. Look at those rings, not at the body, when you are deciding whether a bag has more years in it.