Rimowa Used

In 2013, after having already worked for Fendi at the Italian label’s headquarters in Rome, Virgil Abloh (1980–2021) founded the Milan-based streetwear house Off-White, which is lauded for its hip collaborations and range of sneakers and shoes, shirts, hoodies and bags that are frequently emblazoned with bold graphics and the iconography of America’s metropolitan centers.

Four years later, Abloh released the first Off-White furniture line, Grey Area. In 2018, he became the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear division, making him one of the first Black designers to head a French luxury fashion house. By the time he celebrated his 40th birthday, the Illinois native had, seemingly, triumphed in every corner of the fashion and home design worlds. 

Yet even with the Off-White and Louis Vuitton jobs, Abloh had time for a seemingly endless list of collaborations: designing shoes for Nike and Jimmy Choo, making furniture for Vitra and Ikea (“a super-dream project”), creating art with Takashi Murakami and Jenny Holzer, dressing Serena Williams and Beyoncé, co-branding with Levi’s and Evian, deejaying at Coachella and Lollapalooza.

Growing up outside Chicago, the son of Ghanaian immigrants, Abloh was neither cool nor controversial. He was, he told the New York Times, “an average sort of suburban kid, born in 1980, into watching Michael Jordan or listening to Guns N’ Roses.” He learned about design, fabrication and color from his mother, a seamstress, and his father, a paint company manager. Abloh earned a master’s degree in architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where his thesis was a skyscraper that leans out over the Chicago River to maximize light and views. 

Abloh's process was incredibly innovative — he explained that if he was inspired by an object, he didn’t want to alter it any more than necessary. “I’m only interested in editing an idea or a concept by three percent,” he said. Not surprisingly, he flirted with the limits of permissible appropriation. His first clothing line consisted of flannel Ralph Lauren shirts on which he printed the word “Pyrex.” (Abloh’s Pyrex Vision label would later become Off-White.)

And his collaboration with Vitra included a version of Jean Prouvé’s Antony chair that has Plexiglass where Prouvé used plywood. In 2017, the Belgian designer Raf Simons told GQ that Abloh’s work was unoriginal. A month later, Abloh presented an Off-White collection cheekily titled Nothing New.

Find vintage Off-White clothing on 1stDibs.

Why not add a dose of class to your travels even if you’re flying coach? With the broad range of sophisticated designer and vintage luggage available for sale on 1stDibs, packing and unpacking doesn’t have to be such a chore.

Let’s face it: Stuffing the car trunk or loading up your luggage before takeoff and then doing the opposite when you arrive is often the worst part of any trip, but there’s nothing stopping you from reintroducing the glamour and luxury that defined the so-called Golden Age of Travel.

Romanticized in recent years on hit TV shows such as Mad Men, the Golden Age of Travel generally began during the 1940s, when the big commercial airlines of 20th-century America deployed the newest in large airplanes to carry scores of usually well-dressed travelers to foreign destinations. This era of aspirational air travel was marked by luxurious in-flight dining, copious cocktails and high spirits, promoted in part by the sleek, graphically rich airline brochures and vibrantly colored illustrated travel posters that hung in the windows of travel agencies. Those drawn to the history of this now well-documented era — or those who lived it, having caught the travel bug thanks to revered magazines such as Holiday or the photography of Slim Aarons — will find lots to love in vintage travel bags and suitcases, particularly luggage that originated in the world’s best luxury fashion houses.

With top brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci offering their take on essential travel bags, every brisk walk through the airport can feel like a runway. After all, why would you want to hide all of the fun inside your suitcase when you could make a statement with its exterior?

Purchasing a first-class travel bag will render the idea of “living out of a suitcase” appealing. Any journey, be it to a summer hot spot or a cozy winter getaway, can be outfitted with functional and fashionable vintage and designer luggage thanks to a vast collection of 1970s, ’80s and ’90s suitcases and satchels available for sale on 1stDibs. With designs suited to your very particular personal travel style, you’ll rightfully have a hard time tucking these pieces into a closet when you return home.