Here in Oregon, many of us are familiar with the Portland based bag makers Chrome Industries. Or at least, we recognize their black and red pegasus-resembling logo. For me, growing up in San Francisco, that emblem was all around. You could catch a glimpse of it on the bags of bike messengers as they whizzed by — a beautiful flurry of spinning wheels and radio chatter.
I have used a Chrome bag — a Barrage Cargo backpack — daily for the past 8 years and counting. It is one of my favorite possessions, unbelievably reliable and impressively designed. A few months ago, I reached out to Chrome to ask if I could test and review one of their new bags, the Warsaw MD. An actual person emailed me back! They graciously agreed to send me one of the bags, along with a few other Chrome goodies, and this review was born.
If you or someone you know is unfamiliar with Chrome backpacks, it can be helpful to know they were brought to fame by bike messengers. So, if you can picture the kind of boxy backpacks that those folks tend to use as they zoom around, you can picture a bag made, or heavily influenced by Chrome Industries.
Chrome premises the Warsaw MD as a more condensed version of their original messenger backpack, the Warsaw– “Smaller and lighter but still built tough.” Even being a smaller version, the bag is still quintessentially like that carried by Mary Poppins; it feels like the bag shape-shifts to fit everything you need it to. The colossal main pocket is buttressed by well-placed supporting pockets that house all your gear, making the bag feel practically bottomless. You could be carrying work or school essentials, gym clothes, groceries, or just about anything else–this bag can handle it.
The smaller pockets themselves are something to marvel at. They are constructed with Chrome’s signature gray tarp liner, and secured at their openings by quite sturdy-feeling zippers. Often, when I close a bag pocket, I am subconsciously estimating the lifespan of the zipper. This is not the case with these Chrome zippers, which feel like they will outlive me.
At the base of the bag, on a plane parallel to the ground, is a pocket that I especially appreciate. This space is perfect for items that you don’t need every day, but do need in a pinch — a mobile phone charger, a roll of film, some Advil, a tampon — whatever you want! A pocket like this one, on the seat of a backpack, is quite a rarity, and I appreciate that Chrome utilized that space. It works quite well, especially on such a boxy bag.
Chrome also kindly sent me two of their Utility Pouches — one small and one large — and one of their Tech Accessory Pouches to review. These kinds of small pouches have become quite popular in the past decade or so, and have worked their way into many people’s daily bags. I use one to hold my glasses, prescriptions, gum, and other small things like that. The pouches are quite useful for storing smaller accessories, but I found that I didn’t really need them when using the Warsaw MD. The bag has enough built-in storage that you don’t need to supplement it with more. The number of compartments makes the bag feel different from other more centralized bags, such as my Barrage backpack.
Another distinction is that the Warsaw MD is quite a wide backpack, with a laterally-oriented design, as opposed to a vertically-oriented pack. Compared to Chrome’s Barrage backpacks, the Warsaw MD is more like a square, with the Barrages being more like a rectangle propped upright with a shorter side as its base.
I found the Warsaw’s shape to be more conducive to traveling as opposed to commuting. The pack does not feel as though it is designed around a laptop, which most commuter backpacks are (leading to most of those packs being narrower). This lateral alignment might seem like a footnote, though it is actually central to understanding the user experience of the Warsaw MD.
With other backpacks, the presence of a laptop structures the pack as it sits on your back. With the Warsaw MD, my laptop shifted around while I moved about. So now I use it for holding clothes and other gear instead. I have found this function to be more suited to the Warsaw MD’s shape, but that’s just me. It makes a great weekender bag, because it packs a lot of storage space without being weirdly tall. It is also great for travel as it is quite comfortable to carry even when it’s full.
The Warsaw’s nontraditional geometry is the kind of design element that consumers have come to expect from Chrome. It’s the kind of feature that sets their products apart in the best way. It’s the kind that makes you think: Why don’t the other brands do this? But of course, the answer lies in the fact of the bag itself; this bag isn’t made by the other brands.
Writer’s Note: Chrome Industries sent me one Warsaw MD backpack, one Tech Accessory Pouch, one Large Utility Pouch, and one Small Utility Pouch. Chrome Industries did not compensate me for this review in any other way, and did not make an effort to influence what I wrote, nor did anyone else. The Daily Emerald does not profit from any purchases made through this article.
