Photo: Tembe Denton-Hurst
Everyone on staff at the Strategist has strong opinions, but we don’t always agree, and often that’s where the most interesting and fun discussions happen. In this installment, we’ve got Tembe Denton-Hurst and Liza Corsillo, who are staunchly team Lands’ End; Kathy Li and Crystal Martin, who are team Lands’ End because they haven’t tried anything else; and Sam Daly, Najwa Jamal, and Lauren Ro, who are team L.L.Bean. We’re knee-deep in park season and heading toward beach season, which is prime time for canvas totes — they make schlepping things easy. But which tote does it best? Each of us makes a case for our favorite classic canvas tote, below.
Lauren Ro: I have the extra-large L.L.Bean tote. I got it for a hospital bag when my son, Solomon, was born in 2022, and now we use it as our “throw things in when we’re going on a car trip” bag. Sometimes you just need to throw shit in a bag.
Photo: Lauren Ro
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Tembe Denton-Hurst: I’m team Lands’ End. I have two extra-large ones and a small one. I also own two L.L.Bean totes, a green medium with short handles with my initials and the navy medium with long handles that’s embroidered with “love bug.”
Photo: Tembe Denton-Hurst
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Kathy Li: I’ve only ever used the Lands’ End tote. I have three of them now. Two of them I got as freebies. A lot of brands just give the Lands’ End one out. The most recent Lands’ End one I’ve gotten is called pistachio gingham. The one annoying thing is I used it consistently for six months and the stitching has completely come apart on the handle. I don’t really know how to fix that. I don’t use this bag as much anymore because of that.
Photo: Kathy Li
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Najwa Jamal: I am very loyal to L.L.Bean. I have three or four. I have a large and extra-large one with short handles. I also have a medium with long handles. My friend got me the newer shape, the tall-small, but it’s backordered. I’m not interested in the Lands’ End one. Something, ironically enough, about the pocket. I know it’s useful, but I think there’s something about the Boat and Tote. If you’re a person who uses a lot of pouches in your bag, it’s not that inconvenient. I have a lot of little baggies and whatnot, so it doesn’t get that chaotic.
Photo: Najwa Jamal
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Sam Daly: I also only have L.L.Bean. I got most of them through PR packages. I really love the zip-top version. The regular-open version I don’t like as much because I feel the fabric on the zip top has broken in a lot faster. It’s very soft, almost linen, and a little crinkly. The other ones are very stiff. I also wash my zip top a lot because I use it mainly to go to cafés or my pottery classes, so it’s always covered in dust. I wash it every other week. So maybe that’s also why it’s very, very soft. I usually put it through the dryer, and I think it still looks nice.
Liza Corsillo: My main complaint about the L.L.Bean bag versus the Lands’ End one — and why I’m newly team Lands’ End — is that the fabric of the Lands’ End bag is so flexible and thin to begin with, whereas with a Boat and Tote I feel like it would take me years to to get it to that point. When I got it, I immediately started using it as a work tote. It has a laptop pocket and then a pocket on the opposite side. I use the big Boat and Tote as a place to put clean kid laundry when I don’t have time to fold it. It just sits in one place like a house basket. I don’t carry it anywhere. I’d love to wash it a couple times and see if that might make me want to carry it more.
Najwa: Granted I haven’t tried the Lands’ End, so I can’t really speak to how it feels, but I love the stiffness of the Boat and Totes. Up until earlier this year I never machine-washed any of mine. I was just spot-cleaning them because I wanted to preserve the integrity. But the one I did use as my carry-on ended up getting trashed while I was on the trip. I spilled stuff in it and even after washing it once and tossing it in the dryer, it still kept a little bit of that stiffness. If you don’t put them in a dryer, I think you’ll preserve that shape a bit more. The extra-large one is massive. It’s also in my room as a basket.
Liza: Yeah, you couldn’t do that with the Lands’ End. I think you can also tell from the texture that the dot pattern is bigger on the Lands’ End. The L.L.Bean is a tighter weave, which I think probably means that even if you wash it, it still is stiff like that because it’s a heavier-duty fabric.
Tembe: I agree. It’s a very stiff canvas. The Land’s End feels more like all one fabric. With the Boat and Tote, that fabric on the handles and bottom feels completely different. It looks nice. It’s a flat, smooth fabric rather than the canvas. The Lands’ End just has a slightly tighter weave.
Liza: A pro for the L.L.Bean Boat and Tote is that it is very useful if you are hard on your stuff. If you spill drinks inside it, they will not seep through that bag. You could probably fill it with water and it won’t leak very much.
Sam: I think I spilled like half a bottle of water in my L.L.Bean one time and I didn’t even notice. I was like, Oh, why is there a puddle at the bottom of my bag?
Liza: Because it’s flexible, the Lands’ End tote makes a better bag to stuff under a stroller. The same size bag from L.L.Bean would be too rigid to really stuff under somewhere.
Tembe: From a functionality perspective, Lands’ End wins every single time. I like the way the L.L.Bean bag looks. I don’t necessarily like it in my everyday life. It’s just not as helpful. I do think that there’s something very special for me about the size of the Lands’ End one also. The Lands’ End looks more similar to a Boat and Tote than the small Boat and Tote does, I think. The L.L.Bean one is more square, which I don’t necessarily love. It fits four books, but it doesn’t fit a laptop. Recently, I went to the Sasha Keable concert at Blue Note. One of my friends was wearing heels and wanted to change into flip-flops, so she put her shoes in my bag. Those plus my book still fit. It fits a lot of stuff.I also really like the fact that organization comes built in. It has a key ring. My problem with the L.L.Bean bag was that I would lose stuff constantly. If I wanted to get in the door, I had to rummage around. I like that I don’t have to create a new organizer in order to make the bag functional.
Liza: The L.L.Bean is too hard and feels heavier. If you put your computer in a Boat and Tote that’s already heavy, it’s kind of annoying, but there is probably another use case like what Lauren was talking about: having it in the car and it being where you throw stuff.
Lauren: You know the one thing I’ll say that I don’t like the zip top. I think it looks sloppy. I got a large Lands’ End as a gift many years ago that was embroidered and had a zip top. I do remember it being a little bit softer. My boss got it for me. It was a green-and-blue color combination.
Tembe: It almost creates a collar when you tuck it down. I think it’s kind of cute.
Liza: I like that it’s there because if I’m going to use it for storage, I want to be able to close it so that dust doesn’t get in.
Liza: With the small L.L.Bean, it looks like even the long straps are short.
Tembe: For me to carry the L.L.Bean medium over my shoulder I have to get the long handles. I have bigger arms. I wish the shorter handles were slightly longer because I like the look. With the Lands’ End, I can put it over my shoulder. If you have a bigger arm and want to carry it on your shoulder, I would say Lands’ End.
Najwa: I like the short handle on the bigger bags, but I don’t think that it would be able to go over my arm if it was the small size and then small handles. I have the medium with long handles, and that’s good for a work bag. I wish that the small could go over my arm with shorter handles, but I think it’s going to have to be a handbag situation.
Liza: I will say that the embroidery on my Lands’ End was not done by Lands’ End but a stroller event I got it at.
Tembe: Both of mine are both embroidered by the brand. The L.L.Bean embroidery looks a little bit better. The Lands’ End one is almost feathered whereas the L.L.Bean is bolder and more filled in. The worst part about the Lands’ End tote to me is this stupid tag. On the old ones, the tag was cooler. And you can’t just rip it off. It’s sewn on really well.
Lauren Ro: Maybe it’s a way to differentiate it from the Boat and Tote. Maybe that’s its sole purpose.
Tembe: My only request to Lands’ End is to get rid of the tag. The vintage Lands’ End tag looks so much better. It was small and chic. I’m dramatic but those are the things that matter to me.
Liza: The old font was better.
Tembe: I like that Lands’ End has a lot of these single color ones like black on black, teal on teal — you can kind of do the color-blocking thing with the embroidery. To find cool, patterned L.L.Bean ones you have to go vintage and I don’t really want somebody’s old crusty ass L.L.Bean tote. That’s the one thing I don’t really want to buy secondhand. But the vintage Lands’ End market is good. They do really cool combinations. There’s an orange and brown that feels vaguely Hermès. And it’s not going to be a million dollars. You can find a similar vintage L.L.Bean, but it’s not going to be cheap.
Crystal Martin: My Lands’ End is vintage. I’ve had it since at least 2010 when I took it on its first trip to Buenos Aires. I tend to use totes only when I travel and I toggle between obsessively checking for my passport and obsessively checking for my keys when I’m on my way back. I’m really serious about that key clip. I can strap my keys in and I don’t have to worry about them going anywhere. It takes a little bit of anxiety away. I also really like the pockets because they’re different sizes. If I have a small wallet, I can put that in there and it’ll slide in pretty tight. Again, the only time I use this tote is when I’m traveling or going to the beach so I worry about losing stuff. The pockets and that little key clip solve for that. I like that front pocket for baseball caps or my small Kindle. I’ve had mine for about 20 years, and it’s still perfect looking. It’s distressed in a cool way.
Lauren: I was at a writing retreat in April and there were 12 people plus four instructors and two people had a Lands’ End tote. A white-and-pink one and one that was completely white.
Liza: But what makes a better gift? The big L.L.Bean I have was a gift when I had my son, which is why his name is on it.
Tembe: L.L.Bean, probably. When I turned 26, I did a gift bag for all of my friends. We rented this house in Turks and I bought all of them L.L.Bean totes with their names monogrammed. I’m a Virgo, so just ignore the drama of that choice. I would gift a Lands’ End tote, but I do think it feels slightly less exciting.
Kathy: It does feel like L.L.Bean is what you gift and Lands’ End is what you buy for yourself. The Boat and Tote is a recognizable icon, you know? You don’t have to explain it to somebody. Whereas with Lands’ End you’re a little bit on the defense. You’re like, “This is just as good, I promise.”
Najwa: I gifted a bunch of L.L.Beans for Christmas, similar to what you did, Tembe. I do think the aesthetics are stronger. It’s obviously a cultural status symbol and, back to your point about the tag, it really takes away from the look of it, especially if we’re thinking of it from a gifting perspective. Although it is really cool that Lands’ End has so many embroidery options. That’s one thing I think Lands’ End has over L.L.Bean. As nice as the fonts are at L.L.Bean, it’s cute that you could get something with a little icon without having to take it to get custom embroidered somewhere.
Liza: If I was going to buy another one tomorrow, I would buy a Lands’ End.
Lauren: I would probably buy a L.L.Bean.
Kathy: I’m team Lands’ End, but I am curious to try L.L.Bean.
Sam: I’m team L.L. Bean, but I didn’t know Lands’ End had the organization part. I’m very curious about that. Slightly swayed.
Tembe: I’m team Lands’ End for everyday, team L.L.Bean for flexing or gifting.
Liza: This isn’t a situation that will happen to me, but if I was invited to the Hamptons to somebody’s fancy house for the weekend, I would pack an L.L.Bean over Lands’ End.
Crystal: I definitely take my old-ass Lands’ End to my close friend’s fancy Hamptons house every summer. I’m not studyin’ the status thing though. Where are my keys?! Where is my wallet?!
Tembe: That’s fair. But I do think this discussion immediately ends the moment an Olsen twin shows up somewhere wearing a Lands’ End.
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