The suitcase that can survive travel's inner circle of hell (and look good doing it)

(Photos: Courtesy of Rimowa; Getty Images)

The show of a suitcase has historically inspired dread successful me. I grew up moving each fewer years with my family, truthful suitcases were disfigured reminders of the moves up for us. And the suitcases themselves were ugly: padded with textured achromatic fabric, brushed connected 1 side, hard connected the other, the malleable broadside bumpy and uneven with toiletries that had been stuffed successful astatine the past moment. Zippers would get stuck, the neon bows (tied connected the handles) dirty. One suitcase grip would lone descent each the mode up if I slid it up and down 3 times. Another had a chipped instrumentality that tumbled down maine similar a hard kid astatine the airport.

Travel, unless you are extraordinarily affluent oregon peculiarly deft astatine utilizing points and mileage, is the interior ellipse of hell. In caller years I’ve fixed successful to the traps of airlines — paying other erstwhile I tin to prime my seat, for those 2 other inches of legroom. But my largest indulgence by acold has been my Rimowa, the luxury German suitcase. When I unfastened it to pack, it offers 2 neat halves (each an actual half, not 1 taken up by a heavy jutting rod). Placing apparel wrong it is satisfying, similar layering a mille-feuille cake. At the airport, it is simply a suitcase that pirouettes by my broadside arsenic if we’re gliding implicit ice. The wheels, which were patented successful 2001, smoothly rotate a implicit 360 degrees — modeled aft the wheels connected bureau chairs and infirmary beds, truthful that they tin determination with easiness nether weight. There are nary rather similar them.

Rimowa (pronounced Rimova) claims a batch of firsts, including the archetypal polycarbonate suitcase, which it launched successful 2000. Now communal successful the luggage industry, the worldly is airy and casual to clean. In 2009, Rimowa launched the Salsa Air — the variation I ain — which weighs 26% little than its genitor collection. It lifts immoderate of the load of travel, truthful that you tin psychically inhabit the singular world of flight.

The company, which was founded successful Cologne, Germany, successful 1898, has seen respective evolutions successful its designs, with suitcases made of leather, wood, aluminum and vulcanized fiber. Luggage successful the archetypal fractional of the 20th period was overmuch weightier and bulkier, designed for radical with the means to person helpers transportation their luggage for them. That each changed erstwhile question became much accessible.

For Rimowa, the prime to marque thing durable and lightweight came from different inducement too: In the 1930s, a mill occurrence is said to person burned everything to the crushed but for the aluminum, which inspired the marque to thin into the worldly and make its signature hard-shell look, ribbed similar the plan of the archetypal all-metal airplane (and resistant not lone to fires but to perilous airdrome journeys).

Even though the marque has been astir for 127 years, it wasn’t until 2016, erstwhile it was acquired by LVMH, that it became much wide known successful the U.S. Now it is simply a highly coveted portion of luggage and manner — a 125th-anniversary Rimowa accumulation boasted the idiosyncratic suitcases of Spike Lee, Martha Stewart, Billie Eilish and Patti Smith, among others. Rick Owens has called his Rimowas “a changeless fixture successful my life, similar a telephone oregon a toilet — they’re essential.”

Earlier this year, Owens designed a suitcase for the marque with a bronzed exterior that required handmade pigment, making each suitcase unique. The variation joins a bid of creator collaborations that dependable likewise intolerable and exacting, including the Supreme luggage that was made from 200-plus pieces, and the Alex Israel luggage that blushes similar an L.A. sunset, a gentle gradient that required anodized aluminum. “It’s similar putting a tattoo connected aluminum,” arsenic Rimowa puts it.

Michèle Lamy for Rimowa x Rick Owens

(Matteo Carcelli; Courtesy of Rimowa)

The Rimowas look to say: Here, finally, is the suitcase that not lone contains your beingness but is an hold of it. Here, finally, is simply a suitcase that volition beryllium your armor — and promises to look bully successful the process.

There is, successful fact, a household of a Rimowas surviving successful the closet nether my staircase: 1 that is ample and babe blue, different that is mean and heavy blue, and 2 carry-ons, 1 lime greenish and the different agleam purple. I could explicate the postulation by saying that my parents lived successful Germany for 2 years, but successful information the communicative begins earlier.

“Cheap ends up being expensive” is my mother’s motto. In different words, inexpensive things don’t past — you extremity up buying aggregate mediocre things erstwhile you could person conscionable bought the 1 costly happening that lasts. This was the rationale she applied to Rimowas, which scope anyplace betwixt $700 and $3,300 (special editions aside).

The marque wants your Rimowa to last. As of 2022, it present offers to hole immoderate damaged portion for free, for life. Though thing going wrong, Rimowa suggests, is uncommon and astir importantly, not its fault.

My archetypal Rimowa took a incorrect turn.

It was the ample babe bluish one, which my parent purchased successful Rio de Janeiro aft my sister got joined and had excessively galore gifts to transportation with her backmost location to New York. I reluctantly became her mule, my parent explaining to my 25-year-old self: This is simply a bully suitcase. Treat it well.

Three years later, I packed 10 years’ worthy of my beingness successful New York City into the suitcase and moved crossed the state to L.A. to beryllium with my boyfriend. Days into our impermanent sublet, we discovered it was infested with furniture bugs. In a panic, I threw distant my Doc Martens, my cloth carry-on and my Everlane backpack. But I couldn’t get escaped of the Rimowa — adjacent though it had apt go a furniture bug nest. Besides being excessively costly for the trash, it had developed the veneer of a household heirloom. My fellow and I agreed we could wrapper the “BB bag” successful 8 heavy-duty achromatic trash bags and store it until we felt the bugs were safely dead.

One twelvemonth later, our trauma not subsiding, we decided to support the phantom bugs starving successful the BB container and bargain different Rimowa. I chose a mean size, 1 that was ample capable for immoderate trip. Well, astir immoderate trip. It seemed my Rimowas were destined to transport goods for my family. My parents, present retired successful Brazil, had maine bring assorted things from L.A.: headphones, brushed toothbrushes, hairsbreadth dryers, sleeping pills, heating pads, slippers, nasal sprays, creation books, cashmere sweaters. By the clip I was done packing, determination was nary much country for my clothes. “I’m bringing you America!” I exclaimed. And past somehow, I brought backmost Brazil, oregon alternatively each of my mother’s closet. The solution to 1 Rimowa not fitting it all? Have different Rimowa, and past another. (My parents benevolently gave maine their carry-ons — they’d bargain others.)

The conception that we were redeeming successful the agelong word nary longer seemed defensible. It wasn’t ever truly the point.

Rimowas are built not lone to past but to survive. There’s the suitcase that remained intact aft a level crash, and different that came done a tornado. One was built particularly for a violinist aft helium slipped postconcert and his million-dollar instrumentality got destroyed. Your clothes, your nonrecreational camera, your barroom set, your trumpet, your DJ records — they’re each harmless wrong these tried-and-true shells. “Guaranteed for a beingness of memories” is the brand’s caller motto.

But for Rimowa, lasting does not mean looking arsenic bully arsenic new. In a video that offers the delusion that question is arsenic calming arsenic the soft connected the soundtrack, hands unfastened and adjacent Rimowas that are embraced for the imperfection that comes with use: “Every dent, scratch and sticker is simply a memory.” I effort to consciousness arsenic inspired by the dent successful my medium-sized Rimowa and the tiny teardrop that has opened successful the mesh. My cynical broadside thinks this is the brand’s mode of manipulating however we consciousness astir our suitcases gradually breaking down. It is existent that, dissimilar suitcases past, erstwhile I look astatine my Rimowas, they bring maine memories alternatively than axenic dread — even, yes, the BB bag.

Ten months ago, my fellow and I decided that aft six years, it was clip to region the BB container from purgatory. Nervous, we ripped done the 8 layers. Underneath, the suitcase awaited, a memento from my unsmooth landing successful L.A. Somehow, we’d travel retired the different end, agleam and bug-free.