Carry On Week | RIMOWA

Carry On Week| RIMOWA

To keep the ‘Carry On’ week vibe continuing, we’ve gone and chatted with three brands and their designers who we think cover a good range of Carry On product. RIMOWA (who specialise in hard case Carry Ons), QWSTION (who make casual style Carry Ons),  and Travelteq (who both play with old school and new school vibes and tech). This is the second in three interviews we conducted and is all about RIMOWA.

RIMOWA :: Birgit Wenners

1/ Apart from weight and size, what are the other challenges that you have to be aware of when designing bags aimed at the Carry On market?

A major part of the production work is still done by hand, for this is the only way to guarantee the extraordinary quality of a RIMOWA case. Only the polycarbonate bodies are deep drawn by a machine – a procedure developed by RIMOWA itself, in order to guarantee the greatest possible flexibility and robustness of this material.

2/ How do you find the balance between having all the features vs keeping it light?

We use lightweight Polycarbonat for our cases. In 2000, RIMOWA was the first in the industry to globally introduce polycarbonate into case production – and thus revolutionised the global market in luggage. More than three years were spent on research before the first RIMOWA case made of polycarbonate satisfied the demands of the engineers and designers. The triumph of this material from aviation technology, which since the RIMOWA success has been used by more and more competitors, lies in its fantastic properties: Light as a feather!!!

3/ At what point do you stop using factory made generic components and start building and creating your own to get that advantage in weight and features?

Our credo: Excellent materials, brilliant technology and extraordinary design with the highest quality of workmanship. Handcraft meets high technology!