Saddleback Leather Baby Beast: Built for 100 Years, But Is It Worth It?
Price: $599
Why Buy?
The Saddleback Leather Baby Beast offers maximum durability in a compact weekend-bag size, with a warranty that means you’ll never need to buy another bag in your life.
Why Avoid?
The Saddleback Leather Baby Beast isn’t cheap and the weight could impact total usability.
Here at 100wears, we don’t look at non-footwear items all that much. However, last year, we took a look at the Saddleback Officer Boot and I wasn’t just impressed, I think it might be one of the best built casual boots available today.
I knew I had to see if the rest of their line up matched the excellence of that boot.
Today we are going to be looking at what Saddleback Leather calls the “Baby Beast.” The smallest offering in their Beast line up of bags that aim for simplicity and durability above all else.
Saddleback Leather bags have developed a reputation for being among the best out there – with a price to match. What we are going to look at today is if that price is worth your hard-earned money. Let’s dive in.
Disclaimer: Saddleback Leather provided this bag for the purpose of the review, but this is not a sponsored post. Everything said below is true to my opinion. Saddleback Leather was not able to review this post before it went live.
Design
Body
The Saddleback Leather Baby Beast is designed with a minimal aesthetic in mind. The core body of the bag is made with just three pieces of leather – the sides and a huge piece that wraps along the entire core. While there are other options from the brand if you’re looking for a more specific feature set, the Baby Beast is designed to be a simple bag first and foremost. There are minimal points of potential failure. Even better, if one does fail redundant closure features will keep you in good shape.
Speaking of those closure systems, the bag has three different adjustable straps. One on the front that does most of work, along with one on each side. These offer 7 different adjustment levels. Though, in practice, I’ve found the build of the bag so substantial that it doesn’t really matter how much you put in there. Even when cinching down the straps, the thickness of the body leather keeps the bag from compressing.
The only other exterior feature of the bag is the two leather handles. These handles are attached to two straps that run the entire length of the bag. Rolled in the middle where you grab them, the handles attach to metal loops, making them easy to move out of the way when you need access to the bag.
Details
The focus of the Saddleback Leather Baby Beast is on simple design. However, there are a few key details once you get the bag in hand.
The metals used for components of the bag differ based on their purpose. The rivets that hold the straps in place are a matte gunmetal. Designed to scratch and patina, just like the leather. Well, nearly all of them – there is one secret brass rivet hidden below the loop of the middle strap.
All of the metal that you’ll be touching regularly – the buckles, handle loops, and shoulder strap D-rings – all come in a polished steel. This metal isn’t just tougher, since this is what you’ll be touching it’s also designed to feel better in hand.
Speaking of the shoulder strap, the Baby Beast comes with an adjustable shoulder strap that you can choose to attach if you want to be able to move the weight off your hands. There is a sliding leather pad on the strap, along with matching hardware to the bag.
One hidden detail is the Saddleback Leather dog logo, styled after the founder’s former dog “Blue,” only shown when you open the top.
If I was going to have one complaint, I do wish that Saddleback had installed feet on the bottom. Even just taking pictures on a wooden wall resulted in the bottom seeing a lot of wear.
Interior
The inside of the Saddleback Leather Baby Beast is an equally durability-focused design. The bag is fully lined with pigskin, and there are two small pockets on either side.
I’ll admit that I’m not entirely sure what the pockets were designed for. They are too big for things like keys and change, and too small for a dopp kit. I would have loved to see something that matched up to Saddleback’s own Toiletry Bag for the Saddleback enthusiasts, but ultimately for a weekend-sized bag organization isn’t going to be an issue.
Materials
The Saddleback Leather Baby Beast’s exterior is made of a full grain leather. It’s definitely on the thicker side – between 5-6mm depending on where you measure it. Some areas feature thinner cuts of leather, but wherever that happens (ex. the straps) there are two layers sewn together.
While each colorway comes in full grain leather, the treatment of that leather is very different based on the color you pick. This bag comes in the “Tobacco” color – a mid-brown color that is gently buffed. This one is for the guy who wants your bag to tell the stories of your travel. The bag will show burnishing, scrapes, and bumps.
If you want something more refined, the “Chestnut” colorway is more traditional in its smooth leather. “Dark Coffee Brown” sits somewhere in the middle.
The leather feels great. It offers that drum sound when you tap on it you only find with well made, thick leather goods.
Moving inside, the bag is completely lined with a pigskin liner around 3mm thick. On the body of the bag, this combines with the full grain bovine leather to get you around 8.5mm total. The pockets inside utilize unlined pigskin, rolled at the top to prevent fraying.
The metal hardware is 316 stainless steel. Saddleback claims it has been tested to hold 750 lbs, not that you’ll be putting more than 20 lbs in this bag.
Beyond that, the only other material is the thread and leather strap backing, made from polyester. I know that for someone shopping for a high-quality leather bags “polyester” might be a bad word, but that is going to be the most durable option and is the right choice.
Usability
On the ordering page, Saddleback Leather suggests the Baby Beast is good for 3-5 days’ worth of stuff. If you’ll get that amount really depends on how you dress. For those into heritage menswear – and I’m assuming most people shopping at Saddleback Leather are – you might find things a bit tight at that length of time.
Packing this myself, I can fit a pair of heavy denim, two oxford shirts, underwear/undershirts/socks, a small toiletry bag, my tablet, and all my various chargers nearly perfectly. For guys with heaver clothing, this is squarely in the weekend bag range.
For people who prefer thinner fabrics, you’ll have a lot more flexibility. I was able to pretty easily replace the jeans and oxfords with 2 pairs of ABC pants and 3 polos with space to spare, so if that is more your style 3 or 4 days is perfectly doable.
Heavy fabric or not, I think a weekend is the right usage for a bag of this style. At this size, the thick leather doesn’t have any noticeable impact on weight and usability. This is something that can’t always be said for larger bags. Given Saddleback’s design language that maximizes durability, weight in the larger bags can harm overall usability. This is also about as large as you’ll be able to get away with for a flight’s carry on.
However, if weight and carry on constraints don’t concern you and you need more, space Saddleback will happily offer you the “Adolescent Beast” at 7 inches longer than this one, or the “Beast” at a full 14 inches longer. Alternatively, if the organization is what is holding you back, the “Side Pocket” bag is the same size and allows for more organization.
Price
The Saddleback Leather Baby Beast comes in at a price of $599 (or $539 if you join their membership program). While that puts the Baby Beast in the more affordable end of the Saddleback range, it’s definitely a sizable investment.
At the same time, while Saddleback Leather often catches flack for being expensive, I’m not sure that’s fair. If you limit yourself to full grain and similar size, other highly rated bags are either more expensive (such as Tecovas at $645) or lighter duty (such as WP Standard at $465).
Improving the value of the Baby Beast, it comes with Saddleback Leather’s 100 year warranty. This warranty really is no joke. Reddit is filled with threads from people getting entirely new gear due to minor faults.
Assuming Saddleback Leather is still in business at the time, I have no doubt that if you purchase this bag once you’ll never need to buy another. That’s the definition of buy once, cry once.
Is the Saddleback Leather Baby Beast Worth It?
Like every other Saddleback Leather product I’ve ever held, I’m extremely impressed with the Baby Beast. It’s not just me – when I first opened this, my oldest kid asked me if I would make sure he gets it in my will. This story, which I promise is 100% true, seems to imply their marketing term of “they’ll fight over it when you’re dead” isn’t just fluff.
Let’s get a few things out of the way.
This bag is not without fault. This particular bag lacks any real organization, and even in this small size the weight of this is going to impact overall usability. Further, while I think the price is justifiable given the materials and warranty, there are a lot of people who simply can’t, or won’t, spend $600 on a weekend bag.
At the same time, this bag excels in what it is made to do – just work. There is a lot to be said about knowing that when you need a weekend bag, now or in 30 years, you’ll have something that won’t fail on you, and will only look better with time. If this is what you’re looking for, I’m not sure there is a better option out there.