Backpacks are great tools for bringing lots of bits and pieces with you — lunch, laptop, other things not beginning with the letter “l” — but try bringing a suit, and it’s just not going to happen, so a couple of Aussies went to work to change that.
The result was a style of bag that could keep a suit in good condition without folding it, and still carry other bits and pieces.
It’s called the Henty Wingman, and while it won’t help you out on the town, it has been designed to look after your clothing by minimising garment creases, one of the natural enemies to formal clothing, because the last thing you want to do is fold the material and be forced to iron or dry clean it again.
“Living in Sydney, I wanted to be able to ride to work to control my arrival times at the office, and at home after work,” said Wingman co-creator Jeremy Grey.
“I didn’t want to sit on a bus and risk being stuck on the Sydney Harbour Bridge – which occasionally happens.
“There was no way to ride and transport your work clothes. Generally people drive in on a Sunday, or catch public transport with their clothes. I didn’t want to do this, so thought about a solution. The Wingman was borne after a trip to Bunnings Artarmon.”
The concept is very logical, taking the premise of what we already use for suits, but making it a little more portable and easier to carry, simply by bending.
Instead of forcing you to fold your clothing, or scrunch it into a backpack, where it’ll sit alongside the gadgets, computers, and everything else you need on a daily basis, the Wingman’s creators decided to take a page out of the traditional garment bag you take with you on the go, building a similar garment bag, but including PVC ribs inside that allow you to roll the garment bag and hold a cylindrical shape, keeping the clothing curved but not folded.
Grey told GadgetGuy that it took Henty two years to create — from concept to selling the first bag — with the process involving several prototypes to help perfect material choice and construction.
And because you’re probably going to want to carry more than a change of clothing, a few pouches are included to provide extra space for other things, such as the phone, a tablet, and a few other things, with the Wingman also including a rain jacket to keep things dry.
Pricing for the Henty Wingman starts at $199, with a Wingman Backpack also available with two straps for $239, not the one the Wingman has, with both bags rolling out at Henty’s online store.
