Away Featherlight Crossbody Review

The Away Featherlight Crossbody is soft and slouchy, with a clear emphasis on styling that puts functionality second to it. Yet, Away did a good job working around the styling they wanted to achieve while building thoughtful features we find useful, such as a strap pocket, a wide opening for the main compartment, and a relatively wide and flat base for easy packing.

Are these enough to balance form and function, though? Check out the full review and find out!

External Components

Away has always had a good eye for aesthetics, making sure all their gear look very presentable and tastefully colorful. They probably won’t appeal to users looking for a hundred attachment points and straps for hardcore rucking—Away’s styling takes precedence over sheer functionality. Case in point, the Featherlight Crossbody is mostly devoid of any external features apart from the zippers and crossbody strap. If there’s anything Away wants you to focus on, it’s the bag’s polyester twill fabric, which has a very smooth and soft texture.

The Salt White colorway we’re sampling here is somewhat exaggerating things, but there’s really nothing distracting when you look around this bag. It’s almost like a white void of sorts. That said, the “nothingness” doesn’t last long, at least for us. Scuffs and stains cropped up after just two weeks of testing. While this sounds reasonable for a white colorway, this hasn’t happened to other bags we’ve tested with similarly white fabrics—at least, not to this extent.

The good news is that none of the scuffs were hard to get rid of. The care instructions call for some warm soapy water and scrubbing, which is exactly what we did. It’s nothing anyone can’t do in an afternoon, but it’s also something some users might find too troublesome. If that sounds like you, we recommend sticking with darker colorways like Jet Black and Amaro Brown.

The Featherlight Crossbody’s harness system is rather intriguing. Instead of just a plain and simple nylon strap, the majority of it is covered by the same polyester twill as the bag itself. This makes you think there’s some padding built into the strap since the fabric makes it look thick. However, it’s all air and just the nylon strap inside. In other words, it’s mostly just for the aesthetic (though there is a functional purpose, as we’ll discuss when we get to the last section).

By contrast, length adjustment is simple, as you can only do so on one side. Likewise, the section covered in fabric stays only on one side, so it’s not guaranteed to fall on your shoulder all of the time. But, again, it’s not even padded, so you’re not really missing out on much.

Fit Notes

While you can’t expect much cushioning from the unpadded strap, it still sits comfortably on the shoulder. The main thing you have to keep in mind is the orientation. Whether we want to wear the bag in crossbody mode or on one shoulder, we make it a point to put the relatively smooth fabric-covered side of the strap in front of us to minimize abrasions. This also puts the strap’s pocket in a more reachable position, so it just makes sense to wear it in this fashion. Conversely, this puts the main compartment’s zipper at the back where it’s awkward to reach. Unfortunately, it’s not a dual zipper setup, so you can’t simply reposition the opening wherever you want.

Apart from the ergonomics, the bag’s soft structure is also something to consider. It has a very slouchy look when you don’t have it fully packed. However, when the bag is full, oddly shaped and bulky items tend to stick out and be very evident from the outside. This has obvious implications for carrying comfort, like being able to feel how solid the laptop inside is against the hip, for example.

Inside The Sling

As already mentioned, the Featherlight Crossbody has a small zippered pocket on its strap on the part where it’s covered by fabric. It’s easily reachable, so long as you have it in front of you. This makes it ideal for storing gear you’d frequently access while walking around and commuting, such as wireless earphones, transit cards, and a stick of lip balm, among other things. Space is understandably limited, and so you’ll want to be prudent with your choices.

If that’s not enough space there’s another secondary pocket just below it. Like the strap pocket, this one also opens sideways and is quite stealthily hidden since there’s a fabric welt covering it. Bulkier everyday carry items like a smartphone, wallet, and set of keys are better accommodated here than in the strap pocket since the depth goes about halfway down the bag’s length. It’s worth noting the absence of a key leash, though. Given the pocket’s sideways orientation, one would make fishing out keys easier. The mesh pocket is there to keep your keys near the opening, but we’d rather save that for a wallet.

The main benefit drawn from the Featherlight Crossbody’s fortune cookie-like shape is a wide opening into the main compartment. Likewise, the opening is in the shape of a banana (yes, we’re doubling down on the food analogies here), which makes packing really bulky gear very easy, and finding whatever you’re looking for is also no trouble. The bag’s 10-liter space is quite modest, and it doesn’t take much to fill it. In our case, even stuffing an extra layer when it’s cold is enough to occupy most of the available space. That said, it still feels very roomy for 10 liters thanks to the bag’s slouchy structure, letting you stuff and squeeze gear wherever there’s leftover space.

It’s evident that Away started with a slouchy and classic-looking bag in mind, but they’ve also worked around it to make sure the packing experience doesn’t suffer too badly. Case in point, the main compartment has a relatively wide and flat floor space. This serves as a stable starting point where you can arrange gear side by side without fear of the bag tipping over if it otherwise had a rounded base. That said, leaving the main compartment only packed half-full can still result in that because the slouchy fabric tends to settle wherever which way it wants.

There is only one pocket inside if you need to store anything as small as, say, a roll of measuring tape (always handy to have if you’re a fan of furniture shopping). But don’t think you’re limited to small gear, as the pocket is big enough for an e-book reader like an Amazon Kindle. Yes, this is just one pocket in an otherwise large main compartment, so organization is limited. Thankfully, the other pockets we’ve discussed earlier are there to pick up the slack. Moreover, we recommend using packing cubes and tech organizers in case you need better organization; there’s clearly enough room for them.