RIMOWA

Paul Morszeck founded the company in Cologne in 1898, building wood and vulcanized-fiber trunks for the rail and ocean travel of the era. His son, Richard Morszeck, took over the business and in 1937 introduced RIMOWA's first aluminum suitcase. The design borrowed directly from aviation: Junkers aircraft of the period used a corrugated aluminum skin, developed by engineer Hugo Junkers, for strength without extra weight. Richard applied the same grooved logic to luggage. Those grooves have stayed on the product ever since, the brand's clearest signature.

Around 1950, the company was renamed RIMOWA, an acronym for "RIchard MOrszeck WArenzeichen," German for Richard Morszeck's trademark. The postwar decades built the aluminum case into the standard carried through the first golden age of commercial air travel.

Aluminum, and later a magnesium alloy, defined RIMOWA's product line for most of the twentieth century. In 2000, the company introduced a polycarbonate suitcase, one of the first premium luggage makers to build a rigid shell from this lightweight, impact-resistant thermoplastic instead of metal. It cut weight while keeping the grooves and the shape.

Alongside the material shift, RIMOWA built a reputation on details that later became industry standard: multi-wheel systems engineered to roll smoothly in any direction, and combination locks recognized by U.S. airport security built directly into the case rather than added on. Small mechanical choices, repeated at scale, are a large part of how the brand earned its price.

RIMOWA prices its cases alongside fashion houses, not traditional luggage brands, and the pitch for that price is durability rather than novelty. The company runs its own repair service and spare-parts program worldwide, positioning a RIMOWA case as a long-term purchase rather than a disposable one, an object that can be repaired, resold, or handed down rather than thrown away when a wheel breaks or a corner dents.

RIMOWA stayed a family business for four generations of the Morszeck family before LVMH, Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, acquired a majority stake, reported at 80 percent, in 2016, with Dieter Morszeck retaining part ownership. The deal placed RIMOWA inside a house that also owns Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Fendi. Alexandre Arnault, son of LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, took a leadership role at RIMOWA afterward, pushing direct-to-consumer boutiques, a larger e-commerce presence, and a run of design collaborations, including a widely covered transparent-shell suitcase connected to the late Virgil Abloh during his time as Louis Vuitton's menswear artistic director.

RIMOWA sells through its own flagship boutiques in major cities worldwide, through airport and travel-retail counters, historically one of the most important channels for any luggage brand, through select department stores and authorized dealers, and directly through its own site. Japan and the wider Asian market have long been especially strong for the brand, alongside Europe and North America, reflecting both a decades-long reputation for German engineering abroad and, since the LVMH acquisition, a rising profile inside the fashion world itself.

Why It Belongs Here

A century-old design decision, kept through a change of material, a change of owner, and a change of market. Craftsmanship that doesn't retire, it gets carried forward. That is the whole idea behind this chapter.