Review: Shrine Sneaker Backpack
We first saw the Shrine Sneaker Backpack pop-up online a little while ago and immediately recognised its . Now we've received one for reals, so we hastily put it through the paces to decide what we really think of it.
The first thing we noticed is that more storage real estate is given to the sneakers than clothes and accessories – we've got nothing but mad respect for that design decision. The life priorities are on point. There's ample room for your two pairs of choice too, with just about any ball boot up to size 15 slipping in nicely (apparently there are 'expansion panels' for bigger sneaks). The clothes area is enough for a weekend away if you fold right; we squeezed a couple of pairs of jeans, a bomber jacket and two tees nice and snug. There are oodles of pockets for phones, drugs, watches and all that biz, but sadly no padded compartment for that Grey Goose. The pull-over hat sling works all right, but it doesn't look as dope in white (which we were sent) as straight black to match the rest of the pack. The contents of the bag are kept crisp and toasty, thanks to the front panel being water resistant.
There are some sneaker detail shout-outs; black patent leather styled panels sit under the sneaks, and a snakeskin-styled textile forms one of the divider pockets – both look to be of a pretty cheap quality, to be honest. This isn't a designer bag though, it's 200 bucks, not 2000, so we kinda wish that Shrine kept it simple with affordable materials instead of imitaiting the luxe treatment. The rest of the bag nails it design-wise though – it looks good and feels good.
Overall, we've gotta give mad props for the concept, and the execution is pretty solid too. This is a good backpack for dudes going away for the weekend and wanting to keep foot-fresh, and for those kids that play basketball after school every day and have just gotta change up their boots at half time.