Wawa and Land’s End launched a mini sandwich tote bag that sold out online instantly. Unfortunately, it’s perfect.
Select Wawas in New Jersey allegedly still have the bags in stock.
Three major trends have dominated recent cultural discourse: charms, food and fashion collaborations, and mini totes. The collaboration tote bag from Wawa and Land’s End harnesses these three separate trends into one sandwich-sized bag. And I’m obsessed with it.
Labubu bag charms took the world by storm in 2025, inspiring almost everyone with a handbag to personalize theirs with dangling dolls. The post-Labubu era isn’t so much a reaction to the somewhat cumbersome creatures dangling from key chains, but an evolution into fixation with different viral charms, like a bracelet proclaiming one’s devotion to the World Cup, the cities in which games were played, and one’s willingness to wait for many hours in line to procure one from a Bank of America sponsor tent.
Have you noticed that every big fashion house has to have a restaurant now? Whether it’s Louis Vuitton’s Le Cafe NYC, run by Stephen Starr or Tiffany’s Blue Box Cafe, never have fashion houses been so encompassing that they need to also design your food. And conversely, never has restaurant merchandise been quite so, well, cute. The branding of food and fashion is intertwined.
Finally, the mini tote. While Trader Joe’s grocery stores only operate within the continental U.S., their colorful mini totes have become a global phenomenon. The $2.99 totes prompt long lines at stores and can resell for 10 times their sale price. In response, Forbes declared the mini tote obsession to be a symptom of our “little treat economy” (which you can see on the food side as well, given the number of bakeries and ice cream shops that have sprung up in Philly in the past year).
Land’s End was paying attention to all three of these trends, leading to the Wawa and Land’s End limited-edition tote. It debuted yesterday on both the Land’s End website, where it immediately sold out, and in select Wawa stores in only New Jersey (which allegedly still have them in stock). This is an aggression toward the beautiful city of Philadelphia, but I digress.
It’s called the Shorti® Tote. It costs $39.95 for the tote itself and a matching bag charm that features an enamel hoagie, tomato, Wawa coffee cup, an “East Coast” charm. The collaboration also includes a Wawa branded T-shirt from Land’s End ($44.95) that comes wrapped up like a hoagie (of course). Wawa provided me with a sample bag for this review.
The collaboration celebrates the Jersey Shore and encourages you to take their Wawa hoagie to the beach, where it will be duly protected from the elements by the thick, high-quality cotton canvas of a dedicated bucket-shaped tote bag. As someone who does not ever go to the Jersey Shore, I found that the tote also has numerous other merits: It’s perfectly sized for a small water bottle, my wallet, keys, flashlight (with which I snap food photos because I am a food writer), and other bits of detritus.
Unlike the Trader Joe’s tote, it has a drawstring opening that can keep all your belongings firmly inside. It’s entirely made of canvas (worthwhile to note because canvas totes with plastic handles are the absolute worst), with metal grommets to secure the drawstring. The embroidered graphic collage of cassette tape, wired headphones, a Shorti, analog camera, cup with straw, feels pretty '90s-coded (also so trendy right now), and the Wawa and Land’s End logos are small and demure. True to its name, it also fits two hoagies very nicely.
It’s comfortable to hold on my forearm, and I have found that it’s also the perfect BYOB bag as it holds all the contents of my purse along with a bottle of wine. The only drawback I see is that it does not fit my Chihuahua, Coconut, whom I also generally like to throw into a tote bag.
But perhaps the greatest part of possessing this tote is the envy I have inspired.
“When you’re done reviewing it and need to give it to someone, I am available,” said my colleague Beatrice Forman as I slowly backed away from her.
Get your own.
Wawas that received totes are located in Sea Isle City, Stone Harbor, Avalon, Somers Point, Cape May, Ocean View, Brigantine, Ship Bottom, Wildwood, North Wildwood, Ventnor, Marmora, Dorchester, Ocean City, Manasquan, Rio Grande, Normandy Beach, Margate, Villas, Long Beach Township, Barnegat, and Neptune.
