Luxury luggage maker RIMOWA teams up with OFF-WHITE’s Virgil Abloh to create a fully see-through case
Fresh from its collaboration with skate label Supreme – a collection that reportedly sold out in 16 seconds – luggage maker Rimowa is now teaming up with cult street brand Off-White. Which makes the latter just about the most buzzworthy marque of the moment, a cachet buoyed by its founder Virgil Abloh being named the new menswear artistic director of Louis Vuitton.
Our first impression was that Rimowa is riding on the coattails of Off-White’s currency and street cred. But then again, street is the new luxe. And this alliance is but the latest chapter in fashion’s continuing high-low saga. The polycarbonate carry-on case is – get this – completely transparent. There is no interior lining, no internal pockets etc. It’s the luggage equivalent of a sapphire cased watch.
We can’t fathom why anyone would want their belongings put on show, but then we’re OCD like that. God forbid anyone sees our messy inner lives. Acknowledging Abloh’s penchant for irony, Rimowa says in a press communique that the case’s transparency is a “brazen yet playful response to today’s obsessive talk of privacy culture of surveillance and anonymity”.
That being said, the case does come with customised drawstring bags for more modest travellers. And there’s also a Flex-Divider to compartmentalise your possessions.
To drive home the Off-White branding, there’s an amenity kit with an additional set of wheels in the label’s signature safety orange. The case will make its runway debut on 20 June at the Paris menswear shows. If you want to get your paws on one, it’ll drop in select Rimowa and Off-White stores (though not in Malaysia), in a pop-up store on WeChat, and on Rimowa.com in Europe.
We wonder if it’ll break the 16-second record held by Supreme.