“When someone travels, they travel with their
most precious belongings. Clothing, jewellery,
presents. hey need to trust the suitcase they are
carrying. hey need to know that no mater what,
it will protect what is inside, and it will never
break.” hat’s Alexandre Arnault talking. At 25,
he is the new co-CEO of Rimowa, a company you
know by its products if not its name. Rimowa’s
suitcases — boxy, corrugated, usually a cool,
brushed aluminium — are instantly identifiable on
bagage carousels around the world, telegraphing
a no-nonsense German approach to engineering.
A lot of bags ofer either convenience or good looks.
Rimowa aims higher, for function and design.
Arnault’s age makes him a beter candidate for
a tech start-up than a lugage empire, but he’s had
exactly the right training. He’s the son of Bernard
Arnault, who heads up all of LVMH. Born into
a multinational luxury empire that counts Dom
Pérignon, Berluti and Dior as assets, the younger
Arnault could come of as a son of fortune handed
a company as an inheritance. But then you realise
that Alexandre Arnault knows exactly what he’s
talking about.
“Rimowa was perfectly positioned as a pure
player within an industry in rapid expansion,” he
says, explaining the logic behind LVMH’s £504m
purchase. “he travel sector is due to increase from
3.8bn to 7.2bn passengers over the next 20 years.”
Arnault isn’t a spoiled heir or a Silicon Valley
disrupter. He’s a millennial, and a savvy one. He
knows that this latest, spendy generation is all
about experiences. And what do you need for your
next experience? A bag that will hold all your stuf,
look good doing it, and never break.
Arnault is hardly starting from scratch. Rimowa
has been in business for more than a century. he
company was founded in 1898, the brainchild
of Paul Morszeck, who manufactured ultra-
lightweight wooden suitcases.
Decades later, his son Richard took control. In
the hirties, a fire destroyed the family factories
in Cologne. housands of wooden suitcases were
reduced to ash, but in the ruins, Richard found
a silver lining — or at least one of a similar metal.
he timber had burned away, but the factories’
aluminium stock — used to reinforce the suitcases
and protect their corners — remained intact.
He used the material to make new cases: stronger,
lighter and more resilient ones.
It was such a good idea, they renamed the
company ater him. (Rimowa is a polysyllabic
crunch of Richard Morszeck Warenzeichen.)
In the Fities, Rimowa continued to pushtechnology, this time introducing its trademark grooved
design — a corrugated ripple, engineered for greater
durabiliy and inspired by the Junkers F13 airplane. And
in 1976, Rimowa went waterproof with its Tropicana line:
a collection of cases resistant to heat, humidiy and cold as
well as water. It was a boon for film, TV and photographic
crews looking to protect their equipment in extreme
conditions. he lugage became a fixture on shoots around
the world, expanding Rimowa’s range of influence.
Last year, LVMH saw that the company might be due
for an infusion of new blood. Cue the courting, the factory
visits, the purchase. Cue the installation of Alexandre
the wunderkind, who’d studied at Télécom ParisTech and the
École Polytechnique. He’d already worked on digital
strategy and investments at his father’s holding company.
And he happened to speak fluent German.
He moved to the company’s Cologne headquarters
immediately and started making the rounds. “he bigest
surprise for me was the level of atention to detail in the
manufacturing operations,” he says. “Seeing how obsessive
the workers were about every suitcase — that made me feel
confident and proud.”
Chief brand oicer Hector Muelas is more specific:
“It’s not just engineering; it’s German engineering. hey’re
incredibly proud, in every sense. Precise, technical, focused
— very determined. It takes 117 minutes, it takes 205
components and 90 separate steps to build that suitcase.”
hat rigorous approach should pay of now as Rimowa
hits several banner years. Last October, the company
celebrated the 80th anniversary of its aluminium cases by
exhibiting the lugage of its most loyal (and high-profile)Rimowa suitcases are ruged,
lightweight and waterproof,
thanks to their corrugated
aluminium shellsAlexandre Arnault, new CEO of
German lugage makers Rimowa→Style 47