PATINA + POWER
*RIMOWA x Rick Owens Collaboration
written AMANDA MORTENSON
Travel has a new edge. The RIMOWA x Rick Owens collaboration introduces a suitcase that reshapes the language of movement.
The Original Cabin Bronze emerges from the hands of two visionaries, each committed to pushing the limits of material and meaning. At its core, the collaboration fractures the traditional notions of luxury. Rick Owens’s unmistakable aesthetic—dark, unapologetic, and raw—melds with RIMOWA’s century-long mastery of aluminium craftsmanship. The bronzed exterior, achieved through a meticulous pigment process, becomes a surface alive with its own imperfections and evolution.
RIMOWA x RICK OWENS
Michèle Lamy seen by Matteo Carcelli
“I wanted the outside finish to recall a bronze from Giacometti or Serra, and I wanted the interior to feel like the touch of a black leather glove.”
Rick Owens
Inside, Owens alters the language of travel interiors. The fully leather-lined design—a first for RIMOWA—invitates to engage with texture. The aluminium shell merges seamlessly with Rick Owens’s leather, creating a unified tactile experience. Flex Dividers, reimagined in this material, showcase Owens’s meticulous craftsmanship, redefining their function within the space.
The inclusion of a handcrafted luggage tag in coarse, hair-on cowskin disrupts the polished sheen of modernity. It speaks of primal connection, of an object meant to be held and experienced. Owens’s choice of material shifts the narrative from travel as convenience to travel as ritual.
Branding is minimal, emphasizing subtlety and intention. The emblems of both RIMOWA and Rick Owens whisper rather than announce, etched subtly into the surfaces. These marks, understated and deliberate, align with the collection’s ethos: an homage to form and material, unburdened by excess.
Owens’s voice is ever-present. He describes the suitcase as a tribute to the elemental and the eternal: “I wanted the outside finish to recall a bronze from Giacometti or Serra, and I wanted the interior to feel like the touch of a black leather glove.” His vision extends beyond the physical, layering memory and emotion into the object’s very fabric.
The new Original Cabin Bronze commands attention, forcing a reexamination of what it means to carry, to move, to possess. Its patina speaks in textures, rejecting order and expectation. RIMOWA and Rick Owens deliver an object of rebellion.