In January I was evacuated from my posting in the DR Congo with very little notice and ended up in temporary corporate housing in DC. I was staying within walking distance of a Trader Joes and a Whole Foods, which made the situation a little better. The TJ's tote was on of my first purchases in America, not because it was trendy (I really don't think it is a thing in the US), but because it is a great urban grocery schlepper. It is a sturdy bag that holds a ton and fits well over a shoulder, it is washable, and doesn't feel like it is on the brink of failure if overloaded. If you have one on each shoulder, you can haul a significant amount of groceries for several blocks with confidence. If you find yourself at Trader Joes checking out with more than the one thing you stopped in for (always), the bag is under $5 so it is easy to rationalize buying another.
I have amassed quite a collection of grocery chain tote bags from around the world. I worked in international development, so was usually living in places where it was hard to get a variety of things, and food shopping was always an important part of any vacation. Grocery totes are cheap souvenirs that aren't precious so you end up using them a lot and being reminded of good times.
My TJs tote doesn't remind of particularly good times, but I know of several people who were fired from USAID alongside me who are now working at TJs to make ends meet. They all say that they enjoy having a low stress job where they are treated with respect, and would rather stay there than go back to working for the current administration. Instead of reminding me of far flung travels, my tote makes me think of a safe landing space for former colleagues.
I would argue that, from an engineering perspective, the TJ's tote is far superior to other totes, for two reasons:
1. The straps go all the way to the bottom of the bag, holding weight from the bottom, eliminating the usual tote bag stress point between the bag and the stitched-on straps.
2. Unlike most grocery bags, it's wider than it is long, so you have horizontal capacity without the top items crushing the bottom items. And because it's slightly rounded at the bottom, there is more support for the horizontal carrying--it doesn't bulge out the way a soft rectangle does.
Source: I am an American who lives in 15 minutes walking distance to a Trader Joe's.
What I love most about the TJ canvas bag is also the pocket on both sides. I’ve used it to grab takeout and stuffed napkins, chopsticks, forks and knives in one pocket. The other pocket I stuff the latest grocery store receipts in, just in case, I have to return some rotten fruit or a leaky milk carton.
We have 3 of these but 2 have been MIA for a couple months after many years of service (no wear or tear!), so we’re sad. And yes, these bags have lasted far longer than most branded grocery store bags I’ve gotten elsewhere.
Ah. We buy tote bags to better hold the pieces of America (health care, environmental protections, all our disappeared community members) we're hoping to take with us into a future where we'll be able to use them again...
I live in DC and used the TJ’s tote as an occasional work bag. I met up with a friend for drinks after work at a nice hotel bar in Georgetown. A woman came up to me, who was fabulously and expensively dressed, and was gushing over my TJ’s tote bag when her bag was well over $1,000. That said, it is a superior tote for all the reasons stated in the comments.
As a half-American, half-Brit who lives in London but grew up in both places, I feel so validated to finally read someone writing about this! I was starting to think I was going crazy seeing so many TJs totes on the streets of London - had this many Americans really moved to Kings Cross in the last year (possible with google and meta offices now there), had Amazon started selling them, were they SHEIN knock offs?! I've stopped using my classic white with blue straps one, gravitating instead to a multicoloured one with fruits on it and a really old red and black one with an SF pin on it because I feel too cringe now to be seen with the original (even though it is superior in its sturdiness). It is so reminiscent of the feeling of everyone having discovered your favourite indie band and no longer wanting to listen to the music (in public anyway). And certainly, a year or two ago I would see someone with a TJs tote and think "oh my gosh maybe they're American too" and the thought would cross my mind to strike up a conversation. Of course the Brit in me would not allow such a display of bonhomie with strangers on the streets of London - this comment is the closest I'll get to that!
I’ve been carrying y Stew Leonard’s embroidered canvas mini tote. Same practicality, but less insanity (only one design, no insane “gotta get them all!”)
This is fascinating to me, especially as Trader Joe's increasingly is aggressive towards their unions and employees. Additionally they leverage for such low rent "to keep their prices low", the other businesses near them have to pay more (when in a plaza together) to make up for it. I'm not sure I'd place TJs as a liberal signal- they are just another US company squeezing the profit out of every inch... and US customers are willing to look the other way for the deals.
This is so interesting...I wrote something very similar on a very OLD blog of mine in 2008. The post was called "My Eco-Tote, My Identity". You have to understand, this was the time of Anya Hindmarch's "I am Not a Plastic Bag" and Lauren Bush's "Feed" bags being at Whole Foods for food programs an Africa. It was also when a YSL fashion show left canvas tote bags as souvenirs on every chair — the bags featured an upside-down YSL logo and became the "It" bag of the moment...
I'm kind of tickled that this is the conversation all over again, and with a super market brand of tote that most Americans wouldn't think was anything more than utility. 18 years later and we are still attributing a certain status on canvas bags whose cost is probably $.99! In 2008, designers were just figuring out how to design into these utility totes, turning them into coveted branded items. Here is how I summed up my post in 2008:
"Applying Beaudrillard’s thoughts on semiotics, this trend in eco-totes is really just another way for us to express ourselves. They’re our outward representation of what we stand for, where we shop, and what we want to support. By being conscious of our ecology and ridding ourselves of plastic bags, we have generated a replacement that is literally a blank canvas waiting for expression – preferably a designer one."
I shop at TJ's, but I don't get the appeal of the tote. It's sturdy, but so are a lot of other canvas tote bags (like, say, LL Bean) that, to me, are a lot more attractive. I think it's like the tulip craze: people want them because other people tell them that they should want them, not because they have any direct appeal.
I'm in San Francisco, and felt the pull to start using TJ's bags as my go-to totes about a year ago. Since then, I've noticed they are EVERYWHERE here too.
The TJ's totes are also (oddly to me) popular in Tokyo! More of a status symbol than WF. I think, similarly to what you said, it implies the carrier has traveled to the states. Makes me chuckle, though, as a save on groceries in NYC.
Anna Newton (who lives outside London) of The Wardrobe Edit on Substack loves TJs and goes when she visits New York. She’s posted a few times about her TJ’s bag and I would suspect she’s making them popular locally.
In January I was evacuated from my posting in the DR Congo with very little notice and ended up in temporary corporate housing in DC. I was staying within walking distance of a Trader Joes and a Whole Foods, which made the situation a little better. The TJ's tote was on of my first purchases in America, not because it was trendy (I really don't think it is a thing in the US), but because it is a great urban grocery schlepper. It is a sturdy bag that holds a ton and fits well over a shoulder, it is washable, and doesn't feel like it is on the brink of failure if overloaded. If you have one on each shoulder, you can haul a significant amount of groceries for several blocks with confidence. If you find yourself at Trader Joes checking out with more than the one thing you stopped in for (always), the bag is under $5 so it is easy to rationalize buying another.
I have amassed quite a collection of grocery chain tote bags from around the world. I worked in international development, so was usually living in places where it was hard to get a variety of things, and food shopping was always an important part of any vacation. Grocery totes are cheap souvenirs that aren't precious so you end up using them a lot and being reminded of good times.
My TJs tote doesn't remind of particularly good times, but I know of several people who were fired from USAID alongside me who are now working at TJs to make ends meet. They all say that they enjoy having a low stress job where they are treated with respect, and would rather stay there than go back to working for the current administration. Instead of reminding me of far flung travels, my tote makes me think of a safe landing space for former colleagues.
I would argue that, from an engineering perspective, the TJ's tote is far superior to other totes, for two reasons:
1. The straps go all the way to the bottom of the bag, holding weight from the bottom, eliminating the usual tote bag stress point between the bag and the stitched-on straps.
2. Unlike most grocery bags, it's wider than it is long, so you have horizontal capacity without the top items crushing the bottom items. And because it's slightly rounded at the bottom, there is more support for the horizontal carrying--it doesn't bulge out the way a soft rectangle does.
Source: I am an American who lives in 15 minutes walking distance to a Trader Joe's.
What I love most about the TJ canvas bag is also the pocket on both sides. I’ve used it to grab takeout and stuffed napkins, chopsticks, forks and knives in one pocket. The other pocket I stuff the latest grocery store receipts in, just in case, I have to return some rotten fruit or a leaky milk carton.
We have 3 of these but 2 have been MIA for a couple months after many years of service (no wear or tear!), so we’re sad. And yes, these bags have lasted far longer than most branded grocery store bags I’ve gotten elsewhere.
Great farmers market totes
You nailed it. Excellent analysis.
Ah. We buy tote bags to better hold the pieces of America (health care, environmental protections, all our disappeared community members) we're hoping to take with us into a future where we'll be able to use them again...
I live in DC and used the TJ’s tote as an occasional work bag. I met up with a friend for drinks after work at a nice hotel bar in Georgetown. A woman came up to me, who was fabulously and expensively dressed, and was gushing over my TJ’s tote bag when her bag was well over $1,000. That said, it is a superior tote for all the reasons stated in the comments.
As a half-American, half-Brit who lives in London but grew up in both places, I feel so validated to finally read someone writing about this! I was starting to think I was going crazy seeing so many TJs totes on the streets of London - had this many Americans really moved to Kings Cross in the last year (possible with google and meta offices now there), had Amazon started selling them, were they SHEIN knock offs?! I've stopped using my classic white with blue straps one, gravitating instead to a multicoloured one with fruits on it and a really old red and black one with an SF pin on it because I feel too cringe now to be seen with the original (even though it is superior in its sturdiness). It is so reminiscent of the feeling of everyone having discovered your favourite indie band and no longer wanting to listen to the music (in public anyway). And certainly, a year or two ago I would see someone with a TJs tote and think "oh my gosh maybe they're American too" and the thought would cross my mind to strike up a conversation. Of course the Brit in me would not allow such a display of bonhomie with strangers on the streets of London - this comment is the closest I'll get to that!
Noted union-busting Trader Joes. What's more American than that?
I’ve been carrying y Stew Leonard’s embroidered canvas mini tote. Same practicality, but less insanity (only one design, no insane “gotta get them all!”)
This is fascinating to me, especially as Trader Joe's increasingly is aggressive towards their unions and employees. Additionally they leverage for such low rent "to keep their prices low", the other businesses near them have to pay more (when in a plaza together) to make up for it. I'm not sure I'd place TJs as a liberal signal- they are just another US company squeezing the profit out of every inch... and US customers are willing to look the other way for the deals.
This is so interesting...I wrote something very similar on a very OLD blog of mine in 2008. The post was called "My Eco-Tote, My Identity". You have to understand, this was the time of Anya Hindmarch's "I am Not a Plastic Bag" and Lauren Bush's "Feed" bags being at Whole Foods for food programs an Africa. It was also when a YSL fashion show left canvas tote bags as souvenirs on every chair — the bags featured an upside-down YSL logo and became the "It" bag of the moment...
I'm kind of tickled that this is the conversation all over again, and with a super market brand of tote that most Americans wouldn't think was anything more than utility. 18 years later and we are still attributing a certain status on canvas bags whose cost is probably $.99! In 2008, designers were just figuring out how to design into these utility totes, turning them into coveted branded items. Here is how I summed up my post in 2008:
"Applying Beaudrillard’s thoughts on semiotics, this trend in eco-totes is really just another way for us to express ourselves. They’re our outward representation of what we stand for, where we shop, and what we want to support. By being conscious of our ecology and ridding ourselves of plastic bags, we have generated a replacement that is literally a blank canvas waiting for expression – preferably a designer one."
I shop at TJ's, but I don't get the appeal of the tote. It's sturdy, but so are a lot of other canvas tote bags (like, say, LL Bean) that, to me, are a lot more attractive. I think it's like the tulip craze: people want them because other people tell them that they should want them, not because they have any direct appeal.
I'm in San Francisco, and felt the pull to start using TJ's bags as my go-to totes about a year ago. Since then, I've noticed they are EVERYWHERE here too.
Saw one at a trendy art show in Lisbon last night! 😂
Yes, can confirm that I have been seeing Trader Joe's totes everywhere in Seoul!
The TJ's totes are also (oddly to me) popular in Tokyo! More of a status symbol than WF. I think, similarly to what you said, it implies the carrier has traveled to the states. Makes me chuckle, though, as a save on groceries in NYC.
Hello from Madrid! I take one everytime I step on the states, really nice tote for gym or groceries ;)
Anna Newton (who lives outside London) of The Wardrobe Edit on Substack loves TJs and goes when she visits New York. She’s posted a few times about her TJ’s bag and I would suspect she’s making them popular locally.