A while back, I wrote a post for one of my favorite blogs, Dappered. It was all about shopping for shorter gents, and it generated a bunch of comments and questions.

One of these questions came in via email from a man named Roman Khan. We ended up emailing back and forth about chinos and sweaters, talking shop about various brands and sizes.

Turns out that Roman, who happens to be 5’6?, owns a leather goods company called Linjer.

He told me that that him and his partner, Jenn, are on a mission to “make luxury leather goods more accessible”. They’re creating premium quality leather bags with clean, minimal designs and selling them online for very reasonable prices.

In short, they’re cutting out the middle man (i.e., brick and mortar stores).

Sounds good, right?

Roman also explained that they are a brand new company, and they’re raising money with an Indiegogo campaign (which is similar to Kickstarter).

I get a lot of emails from people trying get funding for their ideas, and most of them fail miserably. Probably because it’s really hard to raise money.

But Linjer has raised over $130,000 in less than two months.

Naturally, I wanted to get my hands on one of these bags.

For the purpose of review, Roman sent me a soft briefcase in black.

Linjer is the Norwegian word for “line”. As you can see, these lines are clean. The design is so sleek and elegant, which is a refreshing take on the briefcase. It’s modern, but I don’t think this look will every go out of style.

Like all of their bags, this one is made out of full-grain vegetable-tanned leather from Turkey (learn more about vegetable-tanned leather right here).

This briefcase is large enough to fit a 15? laptop. It has clean lines and a minimalist design. No bells and whistles, no unnecessary bulk.

The hardware is antique silver. It has a soft brushed look, which is much more subtle and modern than shiny chrome metal.