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Lots of people huff and puff about being sick of New York and wanting to trade it all for wilder climes. Melanie Dizon and Jake Quellman actually did. The couple gave up their day jobs (as an accessory designer and an interior designer, respectively) and relocated from NYC to Manila, and traveled extensively through the Philippine Archipelago and the Asian corridor. Along the way, they met craftspeople, local artisans, and small factory owners, and eventually, their line of rugged, artisanal bags, theMadly, was born. Their bagsnamed after famous (and famously adventuresome) writers like Burroughs, Huxley, Fitzgerald, and Beard (as in Peter)are all travel-ready: They picked up details from cultures they visited along the way, and added tweaks, like adjustable sizing and cinching straps, that they wished their own bags had had. Theres a Dr. Stanley and Mr. Livingston quality to their vegetable-tanned leather saddlebags and waxed cotton rucksacks, one that gels nicely with the explorer spirit thats captured menswear of late (though the girls in our office found plenty to appreciate, too). And after launching with a pop-up shop during New York fashion week this past September and getting picked up by Barneys, Dizon and Quellman have expanded their Web site to include e-commerce. The Spring collectionincluding my favorite, the Kurtz Nomad backpack with Andean textile from Peru, where the entire collection was madeis now available; the Fall collection, inspired by Peruvian fisherman called Pescadores, arrives soon. No off-the-grid travel in the works? Me, neither (though Dizon and Quellman, no doubt, will be off and running soon). These pieces should work just as well in the urban jungle.

tags: Jake Quellman, Melanie Dizon, TheMadly

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