Sac du jour

Roots x Douglas Coupland collection leather laptop bag, $128 at Roots Canada

Sac du jour is offering a special sac this week, the kind that we love to showcase because there’s a lot more to this piece that its quality construction (Italian leather, water resistant, etc.) and general good style points (see for yourself above).

Our sac is a leather laptop case from the special Roots x Douglas Coupland collection at Roots Canada by Canadian author and artist Douglas Coupland. At $128, we highly recommend snapping up this piece of not-so-everyday Canadiana that is at once very much everyday Canadiana for your laptop’s commute.

To explain this last complicated sentence and why the Roots x Douglas Coupland collection matters, we explore Coupland’s Canadian coat of arms screen-printed on the leather laptop case.

Simply put, the coat of arms graphic hones in on our modern “Canadian” iconography (pictured below).

Moose, polar bear, and beaver replace lions and a shining white horse; “From Sea to Sea” becomes “Roots Canada 1973“; and our shield’s symbols now include a canoe, igloo, stars shaped as the Big Dipper, a satellite and those infamous television screen colour bars. Our monarchist crown is more of a lighthouse than a headdress, and we’re not sure about that floating figure in the right-hand corner (a space station?):

The Canadian coat of arms gets a make-over by Douglas Coupland. Screen-printed on t-shirts, left, and as a patch on a leather Roots bomber jacket.

The 'real' Canadian coat of arms

This is the new Canada: checking email while out for a paddle.

Our modernity and plugged-in culture is translated in Coupland’s preoccupation with the Canadian landscape. The unmistakable presence of communication towers as new icons defining Canada makes sense in his evaluation of ‘Canadianness’, leaving not a stone unturned in Coupland’s geo-abstract rendering of the Group of Seven’s iconic landscapes:

Roots x Douglas Coupland collection art

Roots x Douglas Coupland art

Telecommunications, transportation, Canada. 100th anniversary leather jacket by Roots x Douglas Coupland, $1,973.

Coupland’s Canada might seem like a simple and comforting place; our beloved animal icons are all represented and, whether or not it’s good for us we want to have it all- nature, multiculturalism, modernity. But as debate clouded the Group of Seven’s art (illustrating the untouched landscape or affirming the necessity of logging in Canada) here again technology reshapes our white pines and soaring ice peaks.

We have a lot to proud of as Canadians, but how much time and effort goes toward protecting our national/natural treasures?

Would your Canada be Canadian sans Quebecois, beavers or the CBC?

Melton Award bomber jacket by Roots x Douglas Coupland, $598 at Roots Canada

Laptop product image courtesy of Roots Canada.