Why are people willing to pay $2,000 for Rimowa luggage?

COLOGNE, Germany – In the sleepy city of Cologne, the most popular tourist attractions are mostly clustered around the same area – the Kolner Dom or Cologne Cathedral, a towering structure globally renowned for its Gothic architecture, contemporary art institution Museum Ludwig and the sage-green Hohenzollern Bridge, covered in love locks.

Now, you can add to that list a new sight: luxury luggage maker Rimowa’s flagship store.

On May 12, British seven-time Formula One (F1) world champion Lewis Hamilton inaugurated the official opening of the Cologne store, whose facade retains the building’s historic character and weather-beaten charm.

Inside the 133-year-old building is a different story. Designed by German creative studio Meire & Meire, the interiors gleam in Rimowa’s distinct, futuristic style of bright lights and polished aluminium. Accents of patina green soften the space in a nod to Cologne’s bridges.

It is a homecoming for the LVMH-owned brand, which started as a small workshop in Cologne in 1898, not far from the shiny flagship’s location. Almost 500 sq m in size and sat behind the Cathedral, the duplex boutique is a love letter to its roots – even if it may seem an odd choice for a luxury brand worth multi-millions.

While the company does not disclose exact sales, industry sources estimated its yearly revenue at around €1 billion (S$1.48 billion) in 2024, according to trade publication Business Of Fashion.

The opening event also saw the launch of Crafted For You, a made-to-measure service exclusive to the boutique, where customers can dictate the precise size and proportions of a Rimowa Classic case for their travel and storage needs.

Extending beyond luggage, the programme, which starts at €4,500, allows you to create a case to hold any object you desire – from champagne bottles to musical instruments. Complete the personalisation with monogrammed initials on a curated selection of leathers, linings, colours and finishes.

The first to receive a Crafted For You piece was none other than Hamilton, 41, also a music lover, for whom the brand created a bespoke vinyl case. The Rimowa global brand ambassador later shared candidly about growing up as a person of colour and his life on the road as an F1 racer, in an intimate dialogue about travel and passion.

All Crafted For You and Classic cases are manufactured in Rimowa’s factory in an industrial suburb on the outskirts of Cologne. Arriving outside the cluster of eight grey buildings – cheekily shaped like Rimowa’s grooved aluminium luggage, with the curved corners to boot – one can only describe the area as the Tuas of Cologne.

On a closed-door tour of the factory, it is revealed to the press that manufacturing a Classic Cabin ($2,160) takes about 80 minutes. Moving like clockwork, all workers in the assembly line know the parts and specifications inside out. A custom case under Crafted For You would take much longer, because there would be only one such item in the world.

Cachet of cool

The made-to-measure service is the next step in expanding Rimowa’s universe in the high-stakes world of luxury. The brand has done well for itself, catapulting from a humble German brand to one of the most coveted labels in the world, playing more against the likes of sister brand Louis Vuitton than other luggage makers.

Rimowa has just two stores in Singapore – a flagship at Mandarin Gallery and another in The Shoppes At Marina Bay Sands – yet the Republic is a strong contributor to the total Asia-Pacific business, The Straits Times understands.

Prices for the aluminium pieces start at $2,060 for a Classic Cabin S, $2,040 for an Original Cabin and $2,370 for an Original Twist Cabin. An Essential Lite Cabin U in polycarbonate starts at $980.

In 2022, the company introduced an industry-disrupting Lifetime Guarantee for all suitcases purchased from July 25 that year, covering all functional damage. If it is certified by its care experts as beyond repair, customers get a new case as replacement.

Cool is that rare, elusive trait every brand wants to emulate, but few can actually embody. The very idea of a strategy to manufacture “cool” is a paradox; if you have to plan for it, you probably are not it.

Rimowa’s chief marketing officer Mathieu Plenier knows this intimately. His is a job of balancing the hardness of German precision engineering with the seduction of storytelling.

“People may say the brand is cool, but it’s not an objective for the brand,” he tells ST with a modest laugh. “The objective is to create objects that are meaningful, whether it’s a suitcase or a collaboration project.

“The point is to be culturally relevant, but also create something that makes sense, where form follows function. These are design principles from Germany, from the Bauhaus movement.”

Crafted For You was a natural evolution in the brand’s offerings, as Rimowa has in the past created bespoke cases for celebrities, such as a keyboard case for American musician Pharrell Williams and a pilot case for German music composer Hans Zimmer to transport his mobile recording set-up; even a BMX bicycle case for American bicycle motocross athlete Nigel Sylvester.

“It’s in the DNA of the brand to be able to craft a lot of different solutions of different sizes for high performers, talent in culture. And we wanted to offer the same service to consumers,” Mr Plenier says.

Taste is priceless and this discernment shows even in Rimowa’s varied choice of collaborators – aspirational but never tacky. They range from household names like Porsche, Dior, Tiffany & Co and artist Daniel Arsham, to more niche, design-oriented ones such as eyewear brand Mykita and Swiss furniture maker Vitra.

Most recent was a collaboration with Swiss manufacturer Lehni, known for its aluminium design furniture, which produced a sleek drawer and bench designed to fit two Rimowa cabin-size suitcases.

“What I love is to ‘hero’ craftsmanship and engineering,” says Mr Plenier, who oversees all the brand’s creative output. It frequently shoots campaigns in the Cologne factory to “show beauty in the machine and be poetic about industrial knowledge”.

“When it comes to content and campaigns, our philosophy is to show purposeful travel and what it means to have that luxury to be able to move and accomplish things. We try to do it with a tone of voice that is very poetic, that is also honest and genuine.”

“And we do it with people who share the same values as the brand,” adds Mr Plenier, drawing parallels between Hamilton as a “high performer” and the brand’s luggage. “It’s the balance between industrial and the softness of the content that we try to (strike).”

Heritage its armour

The luggage market grows more saturated each day, with competitors – such as American brand Tumi and indie label Away – innovating just as quickly. But where Rimowa’s rivals fall behind is in their lack of legacy. Mr Plenier believes heritage is its biggest advantage.

Now 128 years old, Rimowa started as a saddlery. It evolved to make custom leather and plywood trunks that accompanied travellers on train and sea voyages. Founder Paul Morszeck’s son Richard began exploring aluminium as a lightweight alternative, around the rise of commercial air travel in the 1920s.

Brand legend has it that this signature was cemented after a fire in the 1930s in its factory burnt most of its materials, leaving only aluminium.

Uncovering “stories and materialities” to help inform the brand teams, whether in developing products or marketing campaigns, brings purpose to head of internal communications and brand heritage Daria Jacobs. The Cologne native built the brand archive from scratch and continues to reach out to antique stores or collectors for treasures to add to the collection.

“These are the pieces that appeal to me personally a lot – because when we get objects from former clients, their children or grandchildren, they come to our archive with a story.”

“Most recently, we received a beautiful wardrobe case – 30 to 35kg, from the 1920s to 1930s, in impeccable condition. They told us their grandfather travelled with it to South America because he was a tradesman for coffee. It gives me goosebumps because these are the stories that have the emotional side, but also speak about the longevity and functionality of the product,” says Ms Jacobs.

There were two main turning points for the brand in reaching a global audience, she notes. First, when grooves were introduced on the suitcases in the 1950s as a functional detail to make them more lightweight and resilient – unknowingly producing what would become Rimowa’s signature; and second, when the second-generation owners brought it out of Europe to the world.

Industry pundits might propose a third turning point: LVMH’s acquisition in 2017. The French luxury conglomerate purchased an 80 per cent stake in Rimowa, which became the group’s first German company.

The acquisition opened Rimowa up to distribution, says Ms Jacobs. Collaborations accelerated and its product portfolio was enlarged to become a “mobility brand”.

But even then, it remained true to its roots, adds Ms Jacobs, who joined in 2016 shortly before the acquisition. “When Paul Morszeck founded Rimowa, he didn’t just make luggage. He was a saddler by profession. So, he made saddles and equipment for horse-riding and carriages because that was a means of transport at the time.”

He also developed soft leather bags – so when Rimowa launched its line of leather handbags, called the Groove Collection, in September 2025, “it felt like a full circle moment”, she says. “Rimowa keeps coming back and reinterpreting its roots.”

The brand kept up with changing traveller needs, adapting where it needed to. In the 1970s, it introduced detachable wheels on its suitcases, then integrated ones. Two wheels turned to four, then into the multi-wheel, which allows the wheel to turn on its own axis.

Though the sleek aluminium often gets the most publicity, it is the multi-wheel that is the luggage’s true workhorse, as any Rimowa fan can tell you. The company patented the invention in 2006.

As travel surged and people wanted to go lighter, Rimowa pioneered polycarbonate suitcases (2000), today in a rainbow of colours, and introduced soft bags for daily commuting, under the Never Still collection (2020).

Price of a lifetime

The brand ran into online controversy in April after American DJ John Summit posted a viral video rueing his Rimowa luggage, which arrived destroyed after a 15-hour flight. To that, Mr Plenier says: “Everyone who shares a complaint, we take care of it. We welcome them to the store and we repair every suitcase so the Lifetime Guarantee can be tested.”

Of Rimowa’s almost 200 stores around the world, more than 100 have repair centres. The point, he notes, is to retain the history of the bag – the visible marks, traces of time, stickers – as a “badge of honour” and collect memories from travel.

“We’ve worked with people claiming that the suitcase has rolled 1 million km and these are the stories that touch us. Receiving an object from your parents, your grandparents – this is more valuable than anything else in the world. The fact that we can create and maintain a product, I think, is such a superior proposition today.”

Asked how she might convince a first-timer to invest in his or her first Rimowa suitcase, Ms Jacobs has just one word to offer: Ingenieurskunst.

The German word translates into the art of engineering and informs all processes at Rimowa – from mechanical to creative. It encompasses principles including choice of premium materials, commitment to repairs and a “timeless design that transcends decades”, she says.

“It’s all of these aspects that ensure our products last for a lifetime of travels.”

In her digging, she came across an old newspaper advertisement from the start of the 20th century, placed by its founder. It advertised not just his workshop, but also his repair centre, located in a separate part of the Old Town.

“To me, it felt so authentic to, nowadays, speak about longevity, repairs and lifetime companionship – because it has been so much at the core of the DNA from the very early years,” she says.

“The fact that we are so dedicated to crafting companions that will accompany one for a lifetime is, from my perspective, a true luxury. What we manufacture today is an archive tomorrow, or in 30 years, and it will carry so many more stories, emotions, journeys and happenings, sad and happy.”