Monos Metro Belt Bag Review

Small slings bridge the gap between the pockets you have on your person and full-sized bags decked out in compartments, straps, and pockets. They bring no drama when you simply need a small bag to take to a shop within walking distance. Thus, sub-one-liter slings like the Monos Metro Belt Bag always pique our interest.

This small sling’s sleek look and vegan leather try to reel you in. But does it have the functionality to keep you coming back? Let’s find out together!

External Components

If you’ve mostly known Monos for their luggage, the Metro Belt Bag shouldn’t look or feel alien to you. Through copious amounts of vegan leather, this sling has the familiar shape, structure, and rigidity of a rolling carry on without the need for hardside plastic. The vegan leather has some noticeable cushion and bounce, giving the sling a more elegant rather than utilitarian vibe. The Ivory colorway certainly drives home the point, though there are other tasteful options, such as Carbon Black, Saddle Tan, and Mahogany, too.

You’ll find a debossed Monos logo front and center.. A leather or even a metal badge would’ve also been acceptable alternatives, but it seems Monos leaned towards the minimalist side here. Still, the noticeable stitching around the edges already accentuates the sling’s aesthetics comfortably, so we understand if they wanted to tone things down in other areas.

The zippers are unbranded, as is often the case with these toothy metallic ones. They come with matching vegan leather pulls, but that’s about it in terms of features. There’s no waterproofing or fancy extras going on. We’re not going to fault Monos for using this kind of zipper, even if they are ostensibly an aesthetic choice more than practical ones. What’s important is that none of them have jammed throughout our testing, though only time will tell if any of them will break in the future.

Despite the Metro Belt Bag’s petite dimensions, Monos saw fit to give it a relatively complex strap system that allows you to carry it in three ways. The strap is made of a very soft, silky seatbelt-like material, with one adjuster for lengthening and a buckle for quickly detaching the entire sling off you. The plastic hardware is tastefully color-matched to the rest of the bag. That said, despite Monos’ seamless aesthetic choices, ease of adjustment isn’t quite at the same level, as the strap occasionally feels resistive when you try feeding it through the hardware.

Whether you want to wear the Metro Belt Bag as a sling or a waist pack is a matter of adjusting the strap’s length (and your aesthetic sensibilities). However, you can also remove the strap and simply use the Metro Belt Bag as a pouch. To do so, part of the back panel unfastens to reveal the pass-through where the strap is threaded. It’s straightforward, though not so easy that you’d want to do it on the fly.

Keep in mind that if you decide to remove the strap, you’ll have to clutch the pouch or put it inside another bag. That is unless, you’re also traveling with a compatible Monos Bag, such as their Metro Laptop Sleeve, Metro Backpack, or Metro Duffle. With those, you can use the Metro Belt Bag as a pouch attachable to the exterior.

Fit Notes

In crossbody sling mode, the Metro Belt Bag tends to lean forward if the strap is not tightened properly. That’s a non-trivial nitpick for any crossbody sling, but it is worth noting here since the strap is fairly hard to adjust while wearing it. The good news is that if you get the adjustment right, the Metro Belt Bag’s slim profile sits nicely flat and flush against your body, though not quite snuggly hugging as more contoured slings do.

The Metro Belt Bag also tends to slide around its strap. That may be due to the slick material, but it’s also just because there’s no stopper or locking mechanism to hold the bag in place. The only thing to do so is the quick-release buckle itself, so you’ll want to position that wherever you want the sling to rest on your body.

Inside The Sling

It’s not immediately obvious, but the Metro Belt Bag does have a secondary pocket. See that seam at the front? That’s not just for aesthetics; it’s an actual drop pocket. As you can see, it’s so tight that only really slim items fit here, such as a passport, flight tickets, or your smartphone. Part of the problem is the pocket’s slim design, though the Metro Belt Bag’s overall petite proportions certainly aren’t helping, as you’ll see once we open the main compartment.

The main compartment opens like a clamshell stopped short only by gussets at the sides. Those alone take up a chunk of space from the already limited 0.8-liter capacity, and you can tell that room comes at a luxury here. As a result, we could only fit a set of keys, a smartphone, and a minimalist wallet inside. For additional context, a Kindle is the biggest item we could fit, and it only barely does so. Take note that irregularly shaped items fit worse than thin and flat items due to the Metro Belt Bag’s slim and rectangular shape, which also affects how the Metro Belt Bag closes. The more you pack, the more likely you’ll have a tough time with the zippers.

Surprisingly enough, the main compartment also comes equipped with some organization options. On the front side are two card slots, each able to fit up to two cards for a total of four. Behind them is a slip pocket almost exactly mirroring the drop pocket on the outside. Space is already tight, as we’ve mentioned before, so utilizing this pocket feels too cumbersome for thick items like a smartphone, so you’ll be limited to passports and the like. Meanwhile, at the back, there is a zippered pocket for all the loose accessories you want to carry with you.

Overall, the Metro Belt Bag’s style and aesthetic are certainly appealing. It’s clean and sleek, and we dig its bright interior. Simultaneously, however, we often compromised what we wanted to pack, whether that meant leaving some behind or fiddling with the arrangement to make everything fit.