Protecting Your Wardrobe -- A Review of the Arterton Signature Garment Bag | The Styleforum JournalThe Styleforum Journal

Garment bags are relatively simple things that men usually don’t give much thought about. At some point, when they start investing in their wardrobes, they might start looking into methods to protect their garments—spending time and money to ensure that their articles last a long time.
The way in which an individual treats their clothes is also an expression of their personality, whether it is in a sterile environment or something a bit more exciting. If perchance you are thinking of investing in storing your clothes in a more fashionable manner, then a garment bag with some character might be the right product for you.

Photo: Arterton

Arterton is a young brand established in 2021 that focuses on a few different menswear products, having entered the market creating and selling wardrobe-related products for the discerning gentleman.
They venture out to find producers that can create products that align with their sensibilities and design; William Wong, the proprietor of the brand, is a young gentleman with a pragmatic yet design oriented world view which has wrought their peculiar, quality driven products to the market.

William has paid quite a bit of attention to detail when creating Arterton’s signature garment bag, and it illustrates that Arterton itself is a design firm as much as it is a vendor. The bag, when you first pick it up, is incomparable to the cheaper polyester bags that fill the market. The garment bag weighs in at 1.4 kg, or a little over 3 lbs, providing substantial heft and feel. Featuring 12 ounce cotton, dyed and washed, impregnated with natural paraffin oils, the bag has enough of an open weave to allow woollen garments to breath, but also enough water resistance and structure and density to protect it from rain and spills as well as carpet beetles and clothes moths.
The positioning of the three button holes at the top allows for easily storing two large suit hangers or three smaller shirt hangers, providing enough room inside for the garments to breath and not constantly be in strict contact with one another. This is accomplished further by the thoughtful use of the gussets and side wall design, which when paired with the robustness of the fabric provides structure to shield a few jackets’ hand padded lapels.

Envisioning this product not merely as a means for storage, Arterton added onto the back side of the garment four sets of loops, stitched in a method so that after the bag has been filled, the garment bag can be folded in half and a travel handle accessory (sold separately) can be run through it. The travel bag folds over itself, and the handles clasp together with a snap closure, under which there is a small leather loop that allows for running the hanger hooks through for supporting the weight of the hangers and distributing the weight evenly.

On the front side, the double zippers provide a unique appearance, and since they run from top to bottom, allow for easy access of the garments from within. The zippers are made of solid metal, and do not seemingly get stuck on themselves (in fact, I am extremely careful to make sure it doesn’t catch on a super fine worsted jacket sleeve—most likely this is just my paranoia). At the top of the zipper is a velcro seal, which allows for an easy closure while sealing more than adequately for protection.

How does the garment bag hold up, especially for travel? I write this review in the field, as I am currently using the garment bag during my overdue travel back to Europe for the holidays. Having used it for a few weeks, I can say that it is a quality product with a lot of character and something I rather appreciate. The bag, albeit heavy, works very well for travel on the go. Eventually it just feels as heavy as a garment bag should be. In the end, I have no fear of my garments being ruined or damaged from travel, and the handle is robust enough that it should last a long time without risk of tearing.

The bag does possess some minor quirks, many of which I am only noting for the sake of transparency. Because of the direction and side of the zipper, to access the contents of the garment bag without difficulty when hanging, it needs to be opened with the front facing right. This hasn’t been a problem for me, but if you are perchance left handed or you store your garments in a closet facing to the left, you may need to pull the garment bag off the rack and lay it flat to access the contents.
Additionally, while the velcro works well for closing it, I highly caution about putting, especially in the front, very wooly fabrics (like shetland or knits), since the fabric will catch on the velcro closure. For worsted or cottons or waxed jackets, there is no issue.

The bag is manufactured in Dongguan, China. The decision to manufacture this product abroad stems from Arterton’s desire to offer the garment bag at a reasonable price without compromising quality and materials. However much people tend to critique China, from personal experience I must say that quality controls and precision far exceed some of the standards from products I own that are made elsewhere. The quality of the garment bags from Arterton is indisputably high.
On the other hand, the travel handle that was designed to be used in conjunction with the bag is made apart. Manufactured by Mr. Harry Owen of London, who runs a small lather workshop specialising in vegetable tanned lather goods, the handle is substantial with clean finishing made in bridle leather. Naturally, the manufacturing by this artisan in a major metropolitan capital has an impact on the final cost of the product, but the quality is well worth it.

If you are looking to step up your wardrobe and protect your investments in style, whether at home or on the go, the Arterton garment bags easily meet this mark. I will look forward to future offerings from William and Arterton, as they are starting to venture into high-end hand-welted footwear which appears to be an interesting project.

This is not a sponsored article. The writer received the items for free in exchange for an honest review. Arterton is an affiliate vendor of Styleforum and you can see their thread here.
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