Abigail Cahill O'Brien

Obsessed: Globe-Trotter and Alstermo Bruk Luggage

In Fashion, Flotsam on April 20, 2010 at 5:30 am

Centenary Collection from Globe-Trotter

A couple Friday Flotsams ago included a link referencing some serious luggage by the name of Globe-Trotter.  This is Luggage with a capital L.  One might have to carry baggage, but Luggage is all about what one wants to carry.

Globe-Trotter is handmade, lightweight, stylish and bears an impeccable pedigree: Queen Elizabeth packed her honeymoon garb in it, Winston Churchill carried the 18″ attaché, and Sir Edmund Hillary carted several cases up Mt Everest.  Well, Tenzing Norgay likely did the carting.  If it smelled of steam liner coal, sherry, men’s pipes and carefully folded minks I would not be surprised.

My final point about Globe-Trotter regards the Mt. Everest-scale prices, which begin around $1200 for any suitcase featuring leather straps (and come on, it’s at least half about the straps). J. Crew’s recent collaboration with Globe-Trotter starts at $1600 apiece.

That makes me cough a little.

Enter Alstermo Bruk.

Atlas suitcase with wheels, $727 at Alstermo Bruk

This Swedish beauty has been around since 1804 (take that, Globe-Trotter!).  It’s sturdy, lightweight, and about a third the price: a suitcase can be had for $600, while the versions with straps begin around $730.

Now, that’s not nothing.  That’s a heck of a lot.  But it puts it (barely) within ‘think-really-hard-about-this-for-several-years-while-scouring-eBay’ range.

During home-bound periods, she’d make a punchy side table.  And, oh, to see her round a baggage carousel towards you!

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