(Pictures: Courtesy of Rimowa; Getty Photographs)
This story is a part of Picture’s April subject, exploring motion and the way it modifications us from inside.
The sight of a suitcase has traditionally impressed dread in me. I grew up transferring each few years with my household, so suitcases had been ugly reminders of the strikes forward for us. And the suitcases themselves had been ugly: padded with textured black material, mushy on one facet, arduous on the opposite, the malleable facet bumpy and uneven with toiletries that had been stuffed in on the final second. Zippers would get caught, the neon bows (tied on the handles) soiled. One suitcase deal with would solely slide all the way in which up if I slid it up and down 3 times. One other had a chipped wheel that tumbled behind me like a troublesome youngster on the airport.
Journey, except you might be terribly rich or notably deft at utilizing factors and mileage, is the inside circle of hell. Lately I’ve given in to the traps of airways — paying further once I can to pick my seat, for these two further inches of legroom. However my largest indulgence by far has been my Rimowa, the posh German suitcase. Once I open it to pack, it gives two neat halves (every an precise half, not one taken up by a thick jutting rod). Inserting garments inside it’s satisfying, like layering a mille-feuille cake. On the airport, it’s a suitcase that pirouettes by my facet as if we’re gliding over ice. The wheels, which had been patented in 2001, easily rotate an entire 360 levels — modeled after the wheels on workplace chairs and hospital beds, in order that they will transfer with ease below weight. There are none fairly like them.
Rimowa (pronounced Rimova) claims a variety of firsts, together with the primary polycarbonate suitcase, which it launched in 2000. Now widespread within the baggage business, the fabric is gentle and straightforward to wash. In 2009, Rimowa launched the Salsa Air — the version I personal — which weighs 26% lower than its mum or dad assortment. It lifts among the burden of journey, to be able to psychically inhabit the exceptional actuality of flight.
The corporate, which was based in Cologne, Germany, in 1898, has seen a number of evolutions in its designs, with suitcases fabricated from leather-based, wooden, aluminum and vulcanized fiber. Baggage within the first half of the twentieth century was a lot weightier and bulkier, designed for folks with the means to have helpers carry their baggage for them. That each one modified as soon as journey grew to become extra accessible.
For Rimowa, the selection to make one thing sturdy and light-weight got here from one other incentive too: Within the Thirties, a manufacturing unit fireplace is claimed to have burned every little thing to the bottom aside from the aluminum, which impressed the model to lean into the fabric and develop its signature hard-shell look, ribbed just like the design of the primary all-metal airplane (and resistant not solely to fires however to perilous airport journeys).
Regardless that the model has been round for 127 years, it wasn’t till 2016, when it was acquired by LVMH, that it grew to become extra extensively recognized within the U.S. Now it’s a extremely coveted piece of bags and trend — a A hundred and twenty fifth-anniversary Rimowa exhibition boasted the private suitcases of Spike Lee, Martha Stewart, Billie Eilish and Patti Smith, amongst others. Rick Owens has known as his Rimowas “a constant fixture in my life, like a phone or a toilet — they’re essential.”
Earlier this 12 months, Owens designed a suitcase for the model with a bronzed exterior that required handmade pigment, making every suitcase distinctive. The version joins a sequence of artist collaborations that sound equally not possible and exacting, together with the Supreme baggage that was created from 200-plus items, and the Alex Israel baggage that blushes like an L.A. sundown, a delicate gradient that required anodized aluminum. “It’s like putting a tattoo on aluminum,” as Rimowa places it.
Michèle Lamy for Rimowa x Rick Owens
(Matteo Carcelli; Courtesy of Rimowa)
The Rimowas appear to say: Right here, lastly, is the suitcase that not solely incorporates your life however is an extension of it. Right here, lastly, is a suitcase that can be your armor — and guarantees to look good within the course of.
There’s, in actual fact, a household of a Rimowas residing within the closet below my staircase: one that’s massive and child blue, one other that’s medium and deep blue, and two carry-ons, one lime inexperienced and the opposite vivid purple. I may clarify the gathering by saying that my mother and father lived in Germany for 2 years, however in reality the story begins earlier.
“Cheap ends up being expensive” is my mom’s motto. In different phrases, low cost issues don’t final — you find yourself shopping for a number of mediocre issues when you may have simply purchased the one costly factor that lasts. This was the rationale she utilized to Rimowas, which vary wherever between $700 and $3,300 (particular editions apart).
The model needs your Rimowa to final. As of 2022, it now gives to repair any broken half without spending a dime, for all times. Although something going unsuitable, Rimowa suggests, is uncommon and most significantly, not its fault.
My first Rimowa took a unsuitable flip.
It was the massive child blue one, which my mom bought in Rio de Janeiro after my sister bought married and had too many items to hold along with her again dwelling to New York. I reluctantly grew to become her mule, my mom explaining to my 25-year-old self: This can be a good suitcase. Deal with it properly.
Three years later, I packed 10 years’ price of my life in New York Metropolis into the suitcase and moved throughout the nation to L.A. to be with my boyfriend. Days into our non permanent sublet, we found it was infested with mattress bugs. In a panic, I threw away my Doc Martens, my material carry-on and my Everlane backpack. However I couldn’t do away with the Rimowa — though it had probably grow to be a mattress bug nest. In addition to being too costly for the trash, it had developed the veneer of a household heirloom. My boyfriend and I agreed we may wrap the “BB bag” in eight heavy-duty black trash luggage and retailer it till we felt the bugs had been safely useless.
One 12 months later, our trauma not subsiding, we determined to maintain the phantom bugs ravenous within the BB bag and purchase one other Rimowa. I selected a medium measurement, one which was massive sufficient for any journey. Properly, virtually any journey. It appeared my Rimowas had been destined to move items for my household. My mother and father, now retired in Brazil, had me convey varied issues from L.A.: headphones, mushy toothbrushes, hair dryers, sleeping capsules, heating pads, slippers, nasal sprays, artwork books, cashmere sweaters. By the point I used to be performed packing, there was no extra room for my garments. “I’m bringing you America!” I exclaimed. After which someway, I introduced again Brazil, or quite all of my mom’s closet. The answer to at least one Rimowa not becoming all of it? Have one other Rimowa, after which one other. (My mother and father benevolently gave me their carry-ons — they’d purchase others.)
The notion that we had been saving in the long run not appeared defensible. It wasn’t ever actually the purpose.
Rimowas are constructed not solely to final however to outlive. There’s the suitcase that remained intact after a airplane crash, and one other that got here by means of a twister. One was constructed particularly for a violinist after he slipped postconcert and his million-dollar instrument bought destroyed. Your garments, your skilled digicam, your bar set, your trumpet, your DJ data — they’re all secure inside these tried-and-true shells. “Guaranteed for a lifetime of memories” is the model’s new motto.
However for Rimowa, lasting doesn’t imply trying pretty much as good as new. In a video that gives the delusion that journey is as calming because the piano on the soundtrack, fingers open and shut Rimowas which are embraced for the imperfection that comes with use: “Every dent, scratch and sticker is a memory.” I attempt to really feel as impressed by the dent in my medium-sized Rimowa and the small tear that has opened within the mesh. My cynical facet thinks that is the model’s means of manipulating how we really feel about our suitcases regularly breaking down. It’s true that, in contrast to suitcases previous, once I have a look at my Rimowas, they convey me reminiscences quite than pure dread — even, sure, the BB bag.
Ten months in the past, my boyfriend and I made a decision that after six years, it was time to take away the BB bag from purgatory. Nervous, we ripped by means of the eight layers. Beneath, the suitcase awaited, a memento from my tough touchdown in L.A. Someway, we’d come out the opposite finish, vivid and bug-free.
