Hemp Tote Bags and Backpacks from Nepal: Which One to Carry

Hemp is stronger wet than dry, which is the opposite of cotton and the reason hemp sacking carried grain and hemp rope rigged ships for centuries. A hemp bag caught in rain is not a bag at risk. It is heavy while it dries and then it is fine.

Handloom hemp starts stiff and a little coarse, and people who expect the softness of a cotton tote are briefly disappointed. Give it a month of use. The fibre breaks in rather than wearing out, and a hemp bag two years old is softer than the day you bought it while being no weaker.

Because it is woven on a handloom in narrow widths, the panel sizes of these bags follow the loom rather than a pattern book. That is why a Nepali hemp tote is the proportion it is, and why two of the same design are never identical.

A tote is for a load you set down often. Groceries, a laptop and a notebook, a market run, a change of clothes for the gym. It is faster in and out than anything with a flap, and it collapses flat when it is empty.

A backpack is for weight you carry for more than ten minutes. Anything above about four kilos on one shoulder starts to be a decision you feel the next day, and that is the line where a backpack stops being optional.

The middle case is a side bag or a passport pouch: small, hands free, and enough for a phone, a wallet and a paperback. For travel that is often the right answer, because it sits in front of you where you can see it.

Look at where the strap meets the body. That is where every bag fails. A strap sewn only through the top hem will pull out; you want it carried down into the side seam or stitched in a box with a cross through it.

Look at the seam allowance inside. Hemp frays at a cut edge, so a good bag has the raw edge turned in or bound. A single line of stitching near a raw edge is a bag with a shelf life.

Look at the lining and the base. A tote with a lined base holds its shape and keeps a wet bottle away from the cloth. An unlined bag is not wrong, it is simply lighter and more casual, and you should know which one you are buying.

Look at the hardware. Metal rings and buckles outlive plastic ones, and on a handmade bag they are the part most likely to be an afterthought.

The endless knot, the mandala, the yak, the eye, Om: most of what is printed or embroidered on these bags is borrowed from a religious or regional vocabulary rather than invented for the tourist trade. Some of it is Buddhist, some Hindu, some purely regional.

It is worth knowing what you are carrying, both because it is more interesting than a logo and because it occasionally matters to somebody. We have written a separate piece on what the common motifs mean.

Wash it rarely and cold. Hemp takes a machine wash better than most natural fibres, but the print or embroidery usually does not, and neither does an unlined bag’s shape. Spot clean where you can.

Dry it out of the sun. Hemp is colourfast enough but the dyes used on hill-woven cloth are not all fade-proof, and a season on a sunny hook will show.

Do not fold it away damp. Hemp will not rot quickly but it will smell, and the smell takes longer to leave than it took to arrive.