What fits: reading three numbers instead of the word roomy

Roomy, spacious and large capacity are not measurements. Three numbers and a strap length will tell you more about a bag than any paragraph written about it, including ours.

A bag is three numbers

Length, width and height, in that order, and width is the one people skip. Length is how wide the bag is across the front. Height is how tall. Width, sometimes printed as depth, is how far it stands off your body when it is full.

A bag listed at 9 by 2 by 6 inches and one listed at 9 by 5 by 6 inches look the same in a photograph taken from the front. One holds a phone and a card wallet. The other holds a paperback, a water bottle and a folded scarf.

Every product page in the Telena range prints these three numbers where the maker publishes them, in the maker's own order.

Start with the phone

The object you will carry every single day is the one to measure against. Phones sold today run roughly 5.8 to 6.5 inches tall and 2.8 to 3.1 inches wide, and a case adds about a tenth of an inch on each side.

That gives a working rule. A bag under about 6.5 inches in its longest dimension will take a large phone diagonally or not at all, and a phone that has to go in diagonally is a phone you will fight with at a bus stop.

Check the phone pocket, not the bag. Several of our slings put the phone in an outside slot rather than the main compartment, which is the difference between reaching and unpacking.

The size bands in our range

Here is our own catalogue sorted by published size rather than by name, with what each band actually swallows.

The bands are not marketing tiers. They are where the measurements cluster once you sort the range.

The gaps between them are real. We make little between a small crossbody and a full tote, because that middle size ends up too big for a night out and too small for a laptop.

Depth is the number that lies

Depth is measured empty, and a soft bag grows. A vegan leather crossbody listed at 2.2 inches deep will sit closer to three inches when it holds a bottle, and that difference is what makes a bag knock against you on stairs.

Structured bags hold their published depth. Quilted and nylon bodies do not, and clear PVC sits between the two because the material resists but the seams give.

If you are buying for a stadium box or an airline personal-item slot, buy at least half an inch under the published limit on depth. That half inch is your packing.

Strap length decides where it sits

A strap number is a total length, not a drop. The drop is roughly half of it, and the drop is what puts the bag at your ribs, your waist or your hip.

About 22 inches of drop puts a small bag at the hip on most adults. Under 18 inches it rides at the ribs, which is the position that suits a crowd and a train. Past 26 inches it swings, and you feel that on stairs and escalators.

Adjustable is the word that matters more than any single number. An adjustable strap with a wide range covers coats in January and a shirt in July, and it is the reason the same bag works on people of different heights.

The strap ranges we publish

Read those as ranges you set once and forget. The wide woven straps sit at the top of the range because they are cut for the shoulder rather than the chest, and the belt bag ranges run long because they have to clear a winter coat.

Laptops and tablets

A laptop needs two things from a bag: a sleeve that holds it away from the base, and a published interior length longer than the machine. Not every large tote has either.

Among Telena pieces the laptop bags say so by name, and they carry a padded sleeve rather than an open pocket. Where a bag has no sleeve we do not call it a laptop bag, even when a laptop would technically go in.

A 13-inch laptop is about 12 by 8.5 inches, and a 15.6-inch one is about 14 by 9.5. Add half an inch for a case, and buy the bag that publishes a number above that.

The liquids pouch at the checkpoint

Airport screening puts a size on one specific bag, and it is a volume rather than a rectangle.

“You are allowed to bring a quart-sized bag of liquids, aerosols, gels, creams and pastes in your carry-on bag and through the checkpoint”

Containers are capped at 3.4 ounces each, and medication and infant nourishment are named exemptions. The pouch itself is the part people get wrong: a quart bag holds less than most travel cases, and a case that will not close flat gets emptied on the belt.

Our makeup and toiletry pieces are sized either for that job or for the hotel bathroom, and the product pages give the published dimensions so you can tell which is which before you pack.

Where our own table is empty

Not every piece in the range publishes a measurement. On the pages where the row is missing, the maker did not print one, and we leave the space empty instead of estimating.

97 of the 140 bags in the range publish a full size, and 43 do not. Strap ranges are thinner still: 65 pieces give one.

If a measurement matters to your decision and the page has none, write to us. We would rather answer one message than publish a number we cannot stand behind.

A method that takes two minutes

Put the things you carry on a table. Phone, wallet, keys, whatever else is genuinely daily. Measure the longest one, add an inch, and treat that as your minimum length.

Then decide the carry. Hands free means crossbody, sling or belt bag. Off in one movement means shoulder. Weight on both shoulders means backpack.

Then pick the colour, which is the part everyone actually starts with. There is no harm in that, as long as the three numbers came first.