Great innovations in travel: The suitcase

Packing for a trip means packing a suitcase, right? Well, not always. Or to put it differently, the suitcase was not always around. And who invented it? Louis Vuitton is generally credited for it. He was a young man then, in the 1850s. Famous already, as he held a job as an official trunk-maker and packer for the French Empress, Eugénie, in Paris. But packing for the empress (or for anyone else for that matter) meant stuffing trunks then – that oversize, heavy, wood box with a round lid that made it difficult to pile on top of.

Then came this young trunk-making specialist and official packer to the Court: Louis Vuitton. Relative to a trunk, the suitcase he invents is smaller, lighter, and easier to move around. It is also durable. No logo yet by the way, the LV logo doesn’t get created for another 15 years as a guarantee against faux imitations.

Of course, the suitcase is also right for the time: as discussed in a previous story, mass travel is growing in leaps and bounds. There are trains, and there are steamships, hotels open up left and right, and travel agencies launch. People go on more trips without staff to carry their luggage. The suitcase is right for the time.

Now there is a footnote to this story: the wheeled suitcase. For who uses a suitcase that does not have wheels these days!? Apparently, the wheeled suitcase was invented by a plane pilot in the year 1987. Robert Plath home-makes this wheeled luggage for his own use. It also has a retractable handle. He initially sells limited samples to fellow pilots. And that becomes his company’s marketing gimmick: travelers buy wheeled luggage because they see pilots using them. Plath’s colleagues become his walking adverts. 

Now not every innovation works. Battery-operated smart suitcases sound smart, right? Except that the battery is a safety hazard, and airline carriers have banned lithium batteries on planes.

And voilà. Oh, and one last point – a true story apparently. Last year at London Gatwick a British Earl was asked the standard: “and did you pack this suitcase yourself, Sir?” The Earl was stunned: “pack my suitcase myself, heaven forbid, why on earth would I do such a thing?”. Suitcases are great, yet we are not all equal before suitcases.