Fjallraven Farden Crossbody Review

Messenger bags are a useful style. They’re sometimes easier to carry and access while commuting by foot or on a bike, they give you flexibility to carry them over one shoulder or crossbody, and they hold what you need throughout the day, whether you’re going to work or on a trip. Space for a laptop and documents? Check. Room for lunch and/or an extra layer? Check. A comfortable strap and back panel? Hopefully, check.

The Fjallraven Farden Crossbody is designed for daily use, commuting, and travel, with durable materials, helpful organization, and a harness system that should keep up. Is it a good option for your next bag? Let’s find out.

External Components

The Fjallraven Farden Crossbody is made with recycled polyamide with a PU coating. It has a PFAS-free DWR for water resistance, and the material itself is quite durable. It feels thick and up for the job of carrying your gear for years without being too stiff.

The Fjallraven fox logo is on the front, though it’s not our favorite red fox on cream background if you get the Coal Black colorway we opted for; it’s more monochrome with a charcoal fox on a gray background. The traditional logo patch is on the Navy and Green options if you like your Fjallraven fandom to stand out.

Fjallraven uses YKK zippers on the Farden Crossbody, and they work well. They’re easy to find and grab, since they have cords woven through the metal pulls, and the two exterior zippers are under fabric welts for protection from the elements.

There are straps on the bottom of the bag that connect to the front with Woojin plastic clips. You can remove them if you don’t want to use them, but if you need to carry your yoga mat, tripod, or something else—or want to cinch down the bag from the bottom—they come in handy. They don’t get in the way if you just leave them on the bag, either. We didn’t use them during testing and rarely even noticed they were there.

We did notice the carry handle at the top, which is helpful when hefting the bag into and out of a vehicle if you drive to work. It’s also useful for sliding the Farden Crossbody over the handle of rolling luggage through the luggage pass-through on the back panel.

Of course, since this is called a crossbody bag, it has a shoulder strap. It attaches to loops on either side of the bag with gatekeeper clips, though we never removed it. That option could come in handy if you plan to roll it on top of your suitcase through the airport and then shove it under the seat in front of you on the plane; it will save you from tangling your feet in it as you fly.

The strap is made of two different materials. There’s a padded section, covered in recycled polyamide, extending 15 inches from the left side of the bag. The remainder is webbing of the same width. You can shorten or lengthen it using the Duraflex adjuster at the end of the padding to find the right fit. That adjuster locks in place, which is nice since you don’t have to worry about it slipping out of place as you carry the bag. The lock is easy to flip open and lock closed; there’s even a little webbing tab to pull it up if you can’t get your finger underneath it to unlock it.

There’s a D-ring at the end of the webbing strap to connect another piece of gear, and the adjustment is kept in place with an elastic strap keeper. It’s not the best, though, so the extra strap tends to work its way toward the adjuster, creating a loop instead of lying flat.

The Fjallraven Farden Crossbody also has a decent amount of back panel padding, keeping things comfortable whether it’s at your side or on your back. There’s no breathable mesh, so things could get sweaty, but the bag is never super tight to your body, so air can flow through nicely to mitigate it.

Fit Notes

We have to be honest. At first glance, not too many Pack Hacker Team members thought this would be a comfortable bag. We were wrong! The padded portion of the strap hits your shoulder no matter if you’ve slung it onto one side or crossbody, and it’s easy to find (and keep!) the right fit with the lockable adjuster. The padding on the back panel is plenty to blunt the feeling of your gear. At most, you get extra structure when you slide a laptop inside, but you can’t feel the corners of your device or anything else poking you in the side or back. We’ve really enjoyed testing this bag, carrying it every day to and from the office and around town.

The aesthetics are good, too. It looks professional enough for the office but not so posh that you can’t carry it around while traveling. Is it the best beach bag? Probably not, though you could slide a towel through the bottom loops and fill the inside with snacks, a drink, and your laptop to work remotely by the pool if you were so inclined. The DWR will protect your gear from splashes, and you can zip it shut to keep out sand, so it’s a pretty flexible option to consider.

Inside The Crossbody

So it’s comfortable, nice looking, and—at 18 liters—a decent size to carry your daily essentials. But where can you put them?

To start, there’s a really large pocket that opens with a zipper across the front of the bag. Inside are four more slip pockets and a key leash. That leash is at the end of the zipper, so you can open it slightly to pull out your keys without undoing the entire compartment—convenient. Depending on how you’re wearing the bag, you can easily swing it around to reach a door without unhooking your keys from the clip.

The pockets are a mixed bag: two pen slots, a wider one for your passport, wallet, or phone, and then one at the far right that’s in between the two widths. It’s not big enough for a phone but too large for more pens or a stylus. We haven’t used it much, but it seems to work for some battery banks, dongles, or flash drives. There’s space remaining in front of those pockets where you can toss gear that doesn’t fit inside of them, too, so you’re not limited.

On the right side of the bag is a bottle pocket. It has no elastic or cinch cord to hold your drink in place, but standard-width bottles mostly stay in place, and you can wedge in something wider if you have less in the main compartment. We’d probably take it out if you have to lay the bag down on the plane, but if you can keep it upright, your bottle shouldn’t take off down the aisle.

There’s more organization in the main compartment.

Against the back wall is a large, padded, fleece-lined laptop sleeve. Fjallraven rates it for 15-inch devices, though we had no issue sliding a 16-inch MacBook Pro inside. There’s another sleeve in front of it that isn’t padded, where you could slip a tablet in a protective case or documents to keep them upright and reachable. A webbing strap connects with hook-and-loop fastener over the top of both sleeves to hold devices in place.

At the front of the bag are two more, wider, slip pockets. We’ve been using one for our glasses case, but they also work well for bulky wall chargers and thick cables, a small notebook, and anything else you don’t want to have to dig to the bottom of the bag for.

Anything smaller can go into a large zipper pocket behind those two slots. We’ve stuck smaller pouches inside to make it easier to find our pill case, hand lotion, and lip balm, but it’s big enough to lock down a travel wallet, extra cash, and boarding passes if you prefer.

The space remaining in the middle is still sizable, even after you fill the pockets and sleeves. We’ve had no issue carrying our lunch in a small cooler, books, and an extra layer inside. The bag is flexible enough to adapt to what you carry while having structure for easier packing.

Between that flexibility and the comfortable carry, we’ve really found it to be a great EDC bag, as well as a personal item on a trip. You’ll want to check the airline’s allowable dimensions before you do that, as it’s slightly longer than average. However, it should fit under most airplane seats, and it’ll keep everything easily accessible on the plane, whether you want to work, stream a show, or munch on lunch.