RV - Why Men Stopped Using Briefcases [0:00:00]
The year is 1997, Hong Kong has just been returned to Chinese rule from the UK.
Grandmaster Gary Kasparov is defeated by the computer, Deep Blue at chess.
In sports, Mike Tyson bites Evander Holyfield’s ear and is suspended from boxing.
A 21-year Tiger Woods wins his first Masters.
And in the business world, Microsoft is the world’s most valuable company at $261 billion
as a gentleman named Steve Jobs returns back to Apple.
And in the bag industry, when it comes to what professional men carry, the briefcase
rules.
Now, there is an interesting trend with messenger bags, basically briefcases with a strap.
A lot of people seem to be using this, but the briefcase makers, no, they’re not too
worried.
They are going to be on top forever.
Or are they?
Now, first up, let’s define exactly what a briefcase is.
So, a briefcase is a narrow hard sided box shaped bag or case used mainly for carrying
papers and equipment with a handle.
Now, there’s a wide variety of styles out there, but the main ones are going to be a
portfolio, which is a handless case that you carry in the hand under the arm.
There’s also the folio case, which is a portfolio with a retractable handle.
And then, there’s the common attaché or diplomat case.
This is a box style case characteristically made out of leather fitted over an internal
hinge frame that opens into two compartments.
As the name implies, it was originally carried by attachés when they had important paperwork
that needed to be secured and they needed to be able to maintain it at all times.
They didn’t want that paper to bend, they wanted to protect it from the elements.
This was a case made specifically to move important documents.
And let’s not forget about catalog cases.
These are similar to attaché cases except they are even bigger.
Now, briefcases descend from the satchel, which was a 14th century bag carried by messengers
and the briefcase simply evolved and usually, again, one of the key characteristics we see
is a solid structure, a frame.
Now, the idea of a hinge frame was first developed in Paris in 1826 with a carpet bag and many
other bags followed suit.
It was seen as practical.
It was seen as something functional.
And the idea of being able to protect contents with a frame was accepted and just became
very common in white collar business professions.
So, from the 1850s onwards, they started to become more common and if you go back you
look at any news reels from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, it seems every businessmen in a large
city who had important things to move around was carrying an attaché, a briefcase basically.
In fact, if you think of a powerful man on Wall Street, yes, he’s going to be wearing
that suit and what is he going to have?
A briefcase.
It’s become synonymous with somebody that works in law, somebody that works in finance,
especially in a big city.
Now, backpacks on the other hand have a much more mixed history.
You see them in cultures across the world and they would have various names and they
would have various functions.
In general, there are four categories of backpacks.
You’re going to see frameless, external frame, internal frame, and body packs.
That being said, it was the frameless backpack or maybe known as knapsack, rucksack, school
bag, sackpack, booksack.
Yeah, tons of names, but the key characteristics here is you’re going to be carrying it over
your shoulders on your back.
That what separates this type of bag from all the other ones out there.
Now, for most of the recorded history, they were just a practical bag that was used by
hikers, by students, by travelers.
And, in fact, the word, backpack, didn’t really appear in our lexicon ‘til 1910.
Now, you may be wondering are there bags out there that can be both a briefcase and a backpack,
that way I can get the best of both worlds.
The answer is yes.
That’s why, gents, I want to introduce you to today’s sponsor, EZRI, and check out
their Elite.
This is a bag that I’ve got personally and I absolutely love it.
It is both a briefcase and a backpack.
If you’re a business owner, if you’re a CEO, if you’re an executive and you want
to look good while still having the functionality of a backpack, this is the bag you’ve been
looking for.
Guys, I absolutely love EZRI’s backpacks and I’ve got a variety of them.
Now, this bag in particular has tons of room for your electronics, for your computer, for
books, for paperwork, for your pens, anything that you need when you’re traveling.
And let’s talk about the design, let’s talk about the color.
This thing looks amazing.
So, if you’re going to be taking this into the boardroom, it is going to be a hundred
percent appropriate.
What I love about this is when you’re commuting when you’re traveling for most of the time,
you can have it as a backpack and then it transforms right into a briefcase as you’re
walking into the office.
And besides the great looks, I love how EZRI backpacks are incredibly functional.
When you put this on your shoulders, you’re going to have cushioning on the shoulders,
on your back.
And they’ve got hidden pockets all over the place whether it’s on the straps on
the sides, so that you can easily access your passports, you can carry a little bit of cash,
keep it in there.
And the EZRI Travel is another one that I absolutely love and I’ve taken with me multiple
times.
In fact, I use it as my day-to-day bag whenever I’m just going to work in Starbucks.
One thing I really love about a lot of these bags is they open up fully.
So, you notice how the zippers just fully open up this bag and this is really functional
just really useful, again, if you’re going to be packing clothing, packing your gym clothes.
[0:05:00] And, of course, if you’re traveling to the
airport, you’ve got luggage, your EZRI backpack fits right there on the luggage telescopic
handle.
And, again, gents, I love the durability.
Not only these backpacks lightweight, but these are backpacks that can take a beating.
Just clean them off if you’ve got a little bit of dirt on them.
Highly recommended, gents.
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So, what led to the fall of the briefcase?
Well, we started to see the cracks in the wall whenever we saw the messenger bag rise
and the sales shot up and the messenger bag was kind of a variation of the briefcase.
It was a mixed, you know, you have that big strap going across, you can wear it in variety
of ways.
On one shoulder, you could carry it with a hand, you could strap it across the body.
I remember even wearing this thing almost like a backpack.
Point being is this was a pretty versatile bag.
But, it addressed a big issue and that was the rise of the personal computer, that laptop
I’m talking about.
And those laptops, I mean, I had a huge laptop and I needed to get a larger messenger bag.
They were usually made out of a canvas material, relatively inexpensive, but they actually
fit the need of the person.
You know, we look at the briefcase as something that suits wore.
So, if you didn’t wear a suit, but you still needed to be able to carry your new equipment,
this really nice laptop that you wanted to take care of that still weigh like 10 to 15
lbs, you got a messenger bag.
So, with the rise of the laptop, we also saw just simply a culture of people that were
rejecting dressing up.
And, again, the briefcase was associated with the suit.
So, between those two things right there, we started seeing cracks in the wall.
All of a sudden, people were going towards, hey, what other options do I have to carry
my important gear, which is no longer paperwork that will be shaped, but more of a computer
that I want to make sure is cushioned and protected.
Now, the next step in the evolution was understanding that comfort started becoming really important.
If you’ve even had a messenger bag carrying about 30 lbs of stuff, you know that over
time it just really start to hurt that one shoulder.
That’s why I started going cross carry with a lot of things.
It was better, but still it didn’t solve the problem and I’m going back and forth
and I just felt like I couldn’t run, I couldn’t move really as easily.
So, all of a sudden, people started looking for alternatives to the messenger bag.
And the backpack was right there ready to step in.
Now, gents, if you’re enjoying today’s video, if you love your backpack or you love
your briefcase, do me a favor, smash the like button.
When you do this, more men find this video and I appreciate it.
It lets me know that this video is something that I should create more like.
Now, I remember in business school back in 2005 at the University of Texas at McCombs,
they actually gave us backpacks.
And this was my first backpack that actually had a cushioned space for a laptop computer
and this was in a business environment.
All of a sudden, they were putting their stamp of approval.
We saw all of a sudden backpacks start to evolved.
All the backpacks I’ve had up to that point were pretty much like knapsacks.
They didn’t have any type of form to them.
They didn’t really have any protection for laptop.
And I am aware that they were out before then.
But all of a sudden, you saw business schools starting to give these to their students because,
hey, we’re students, backpacks were normally seen as very casual, acceptable at the same
time, we had not only a lot of books to carry, but we had to protect our big investment,
which, again, was that laptop.
But, if you disagree with me, guys, I want to hear from you down in the comments below.
You guys know I love hearing your opinions, Antonio, you’re full of crap.
Antonio, you’re exactly right.
Guys, I want to hear what are your experiences with the briefcases versus backpacks.
What do you think?
Guys, let me hear it down below.
So, I want to reiterate, again, the backpack companies are starting to see the market,
they’re seeing the opportunity not just in placing padding and giving a bit more structure
to these backpacks for students, but also saying, can we go upscale because the students
are taking these jobs.
And can we, you know, once they start making money, can we start making these backpacks
out of leather, out of higher end materials.
Bigger brands all of a sudden started coming in and charging higher market prices for backpacks
that were very similar to the ones you had as a student, but now, they have a fancy logo
on them.
Now, they are made out of better material.
The stitching, the sewing, the construction, everything started stepping up.
And so, now, all of a sudden the functionality of the backpacks started to shine because
one of the key things with the backpack compared to any bag that you carry in your hand is
you’re keeping the weight closer to the body.
Any hiker knows this and that’s why, you know, you get the framed backpacks, but those
are a little bit overkill.
But, with these new backpacks that were geared towards professionals, they had padding, they
kept the weight close to the body.
And so, if you had 40 lbs, you had all of these books, you had your laptop, you had
everything that you needed for a day, all of a sudden the backpack was shining through.
And all of a sudden, we started seeing that people were carrying.
Men need it a lot more and women as well.
But, I know as a professional student and then as a young professional, a lot of you
guys are working out in the morning.
You’re leaving your home at 7:00, maybe 6:00 in the morning.
You’re going to the gym, then you’re going straight to work that you need everything,
you’ve all of a sudden got not only your electronic components, you know, laptop you
took home.
[0:10:00] But, you’ve got your phones, you’ve got
just all these charging devices, all of the stuff you need to take with you.
So, the backpack started to become larger at the same time, providing structure.
They were made more durable, so you saw the bottom being reinforced on this, so they weren’t
falling apart.
The straps had it they had to go through and reinforced all the straps.
But, you saw the evolution of this backpack, the size, you know, not getting out of control
keeping everything having a place, more companies were manufacturing.
And as this happened, all of a sudden, more people started picking up backpacks that were
going into these professional jobs.
Now, of course, in 2010, there were a lot of hold outs, especially in the conservative
industries.
There was just an understanding, when you saw the people at the top still carrying around
their briefcases, maybe they were carrying around older messenger bag, but, hey, they
were carrying a bag.
They weren’t coming in with their backpacks.
And a lot of people, you know, they resisted this, until they didn’t because they realized
that, hey, one day, they just bring in the backpack maybe in 2012, 2013.
And I was reading an article over at the Wall Street Journal talking about this in particular.
I ran through the comments, all of these investment bankers, all these people that are right there
in the industry in Chicago, in New York, Dallas, San Francisco.
And all of these people are saying, hey, yes, we saw it coming in, we resisted initially
and then I tried it and I realized that it is just practical to start wearing a backpack.
And that is perhaps the strongest reason why the backpack is going to stick around because
people have both hands free.
Yes, you could argue that, you know, having one hand free for doors and for your coffee
is going to be fine, but it was the advent of the smartphone and simply people working
on the go and being expected to make things happen even over their lunch break.
So, you’re walking down the street, guess what you’re doing?
A lot of people these professionals, they’re right on their phone.
Is it safe?
No, but it’s something that they’re doing anyway and they wanted to keep both hands
free.
I know just simply having one hand free to, you know, maybe carrying umbrella, another
one to carry my coffee.
I mean, you – it’s just nice to be able to have your hands free.
And, again, because we saw the industry shift, it took a while, took over 20 years for the
backpack to make its evolution.
But, I think it’s safe to say in 2022, the sales of professional backpacks to briefcases
has got to be a huge factor.
The briefcase has really fallen in terms of total sales.
And do I think the briefcase is dead?
No, it’s going to stick around because it has a very functional purpose, especially
you see some of these made out of aluminum, made out of other metals.
These are great for transporting very valuable items, items that, you know, you still see
people like handcuffing a briefcase to their arm because they don’t want to take it.
But, also I just think if you’ve got something that you want to make that the priority if
it’s not electronic.
So, if you’re in the world of law, if you’ve got important documents, papers that you are
transporting and you don’t want anything to happen to them, I can see the advantage
of a case specifically designed to be able to move documents, to be able to protect them.
Yeah, there’s always going to be a need for this particular type.
Is it going to reach the same heights that it once did in the 1980s, late 1990s?
The answer I think is no.
Now, if you enjoyed this video, gents, I think you’re going to love this one right here,
why did men stop wearing capes?
Seriously, we used to wear capes, why did men stop?
Guys, I put this great video together for you.
Go check it out, it’s a good one.
[0:13:18] End of audio