Melvill & Moon Bladsak

In The Field

‘Blad’ is Afrikaans for your web cage. ‘Sak’ is bag. The bag is traditionally worn over the shoulder and slung above the belt line under the arm.

The semi arid Karoo region of South Africa is home to many legendary sheep farms. On account of low carrying capacity none of these farms are small. 10,000 hectares plus is not uncommon. So a day out on the farm means literally that. You don’t exactly pop home for lunch. This is where the Karoo farmers ‘bladsak’ (shoulder bag) tradition began. A day bag big enough to carry all ones personal essentials for the day – the most important one being lunch.

The Herold family are well known Grasff-Reinet (Karoo) farmers. Our original Bladsack sample was leant to us by David Herold. He’d fashioned it out of webbing while with the South African forces in Italy during WW2. Sadly that steadfast original was lost in a farm fire. The bag depicted is our original copy of it now into its 3rd decade of service on that same Karoo farm.