In Berlin, the bag is everywhere. Hot young dads slip it over one shoulder. Older German women pull knitting from its mouth. This canvas tote is carried by 12-year-olds on field trips, by harried white-collar workers with their laptops, by the homeless and by many, many stylish people.

Its design — black Gothic print interrupted by what vaguely resembles a red wax seal — is distinctive. It gives off the illusion of readable text, leaving passers-by squinting after it, trying to decipher its meaning.

The bag is to Berlin what a New Yorker tote is to that magazine’s namesake metropolis, or a London Review of Books tote is to its hometown (and, interestingly, Seoul). Yet it signifies nothing in particular and has no known designer.

I cornered one of the sharply dressed start-up guys with the bag slung over his shoulder at Weinmeisterstraße U-Bahn to ask where he’d got it, and was met with a brusque “keine Ahnung” (no idea). Some weeks later, when I was too nervous to approach the tall, beautiful women walking down Hermannstraße with the bag, my sister obligingly chased after them to ask.