Bellroy Laneway Crescent Bag 2.5L Review

Crossbody slings are useful for many things, from everyday carry to travel. Need a place for your phone, wallet, keys, battery bank, and a few toiletries? That’s what a sling is for, whether you have pants pockets or not. Sometimes it’s just more convenient to have something at your side or on your chest when it’s time to pay or take a picture.

However, slings come in different shapes and sizes, with some more like fanny packs of yesteryear and others more like purses or small messenger bags. As you might guess from the name, the Bellroy Laneway Crescent Bag 2.5L is more the latter than the former. So, how does it work out in daily use? Pretty well! Let’s get into the details.

External Components

Bellroy uses a material it calls Seaweave for this bag. It’s a nylon material made with 50% recycled ocean waste, and it’s pretty shiny, whether you get it in Blue Steel (a grayish blue), Ink (black), or Fawn (taupe). The Sea Kelp (olive green) colorway is matte, but it’s the only one with that option. That may or may not suit your tastes (we’re divided here at Pack Hacker HQ), but it’s good to know because it can be easier to clean, though it will also show bulges from bulky gear more.

On the bottom right of the bag’s front is a rubbery Bellroy patch in the same color as the bag. It’s similar to the patch found on many of Bellroy’s current product lineup, like the Bellroy Classic Sling 5L and the Bellroy Hanging Toiletry Kit Plus, and it’s a vegan option, compared to the leather patches on some other Bellroy gear. Either way, branding is still a subtle touch, and we’re here for it.

There are YKK zippers with metal pulls that have cords woven through, ending in round plastic tabs. They’re easy to grab when you want to open and shut pockets and compartments, though they can be a little louder than you might prefer. Again, some on the Pack Hacker team don’t like them, while others think they’re fine. What you need to know is that the zippers work well and are easy to find and grab, which is, we think, the hallmark of a good zipper. And hey, if you don’t like the cords with the plastic ends, just pull them out and you’ll be left with traditional YKK metal pulls … that still jingle.

The back panel features a quilted padding that does a decent job of blunting the feeling of what’s inside the rear pocket. It wouldn’t be that noticeable anyway, since this isn’t a bag you wear tight against your body, but the cushion is a nice touch, and the horizontal quilting provides an interesting little pop of design.

The strap is quite simple. It’s a nylon webbing doubled through a rectangular metal ring on one end and adjustable through a metal adjuster on the other. It’s easy to slide through the adjuster and stays in place where you put it, so you can wear the bag higher over one shoulder, long and low at your front, back, or side, or somewhere in the middle.

We tend to change how we carry it depending on the situation. Going to and from the parking lot daily for work? High over one shoulder. Bike riding? Low and slung against the back. Shopping? A mix of both. There isn’t any padding on the strap, but it doesn’t bother us on a 2.5L bag because you just can’t make it that heavy. The only somewhat annoying thing is that the two strap layers don’t always want to line up when you grab it, but that’s not always an issue, and it’s also not that big of a deal.

Fit Notes

Whether the strap is short or long, the bag has a casual, everyday carry aesthetic similar to a purse. After all, it’s a traditional handbag style, just in a more casual, gender-neutral design. Thanks to the subtle built-in structure, it sits nicely on a table without falling over, and the crescent peaks remain upright instead of sagging over. The material’s sheen isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s true of many nylon bags, and you’re probably not reading this if you know you hate nylon.

It’s comfortable to wear on a long bike ride, while shopping for hours, or while taking a walk, and the adjustable strap makes it easy to find the right fit for any body type. There’s no padding or shape to work around different body types, so it’s a pretty universally good fit.

Inside The Sling

It also fits much of what you need every day. However, that’s because it’s more open and freeform than dialed-in and organized, so if you’re looking for a desk caddy with a strap, this is not the bag for you.

Against the back panel is a zipper somewhat hidden by the horizontal quilted pattern, but noticeable because of the zipper pull. It opens to reveal a spacious dump pocket for whatever you need. We’ve been using it for a phone strap and hand sanitizer, but it can just as easily fit your phone, battery bank, and cord, your wallet, passport, and cash, or whatever else you want to carry there. Because of the back panel padding, we don’t really feel oddly-shaped gear, so you can put pretty much whatever you like there, within reason. If you put something too fat inside, it will push into the main compartment, so you’ll want to be aware of that and perhaps use the larger space for larger items.

Heading over to the main compartment, which you get into via the zipper on the top of the bag, you’ll find a few additional organizational features, but mostly open space. On the back panel, adjacent to that pocket we just discussed, is another zipper pocket for small accessories like dongles, SD cards, and flash drives if you carry a lot of tech, or lip balm, a nail file, and hand lotion if you prefer to bring toiletries. Or you can do a mix of both; we don’t judge!

The flexible materials and soft padding allow both of these pockets to flex wherever they need to be, so you’re not too constrained by what you put inside. We just like locking down small gear, but if you want to zip up your passport or extra cash, you can do that, too.

Then, on the side of the bag with the strap adjuster instead of the rectangular ring (left on the back, right on the front), there’s a somewhat wide slip pocket that we found to be the perfect size for holding sunglasses upright and accessible. Doing so takes advantage of at least one of those crescent peaks and means you never have to dig for them when the sun comes out. You could use it for a small bottle of sunscreen or lotion, a portable fan, a battery bank, or whatever you don’t want just bouncing around the bottom of the bag. If you don’t need it, it just lies flat against the side since it has no built-in structure or padding, but we found it much more useful than we first thought it would be.

A key clip on a long corded leash is on the front side of this pocket. It’s long enough to let you reach a lock without detaching them from the clip or taking the sling off your body, but it’s so long that the keys end up on the bottom of the bag anyway, and they could be anywhere along the bottom. Since the leash itself is somewhat obscured by that pocket we were just discussing, we didn’t find it too useful and tossed keys inside willy-nilly since they ended up like that anyway.

The rest of the bag is open space, and for 2.5 liters, there’s actually quite a bit of it. Throughout the testing period, we tossed in a packable bag, a minimalist wallet, a travel pill case, gloves, a phone, earbuds, and various other items, depending on what our tester was doing. Snack bars? Check. Mints? Check. An apple for lunch? Check. The flexible sides give you the freedom to pack quite a lot inside, as long as you don’t mind digging around for what you need. On the other hand, it’s a pretty small space, so there’s not a ton of digging necessary, anyway, and the rusty brown color of the liner makes it pretty to see inside.

Since this everyday carry sling adapts well to different outfits and situations, our tester really liked it. Sure, it’s a little shiny, but its design might shine through to convince you to overlook a little sheen.