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.collaboration RIMOWA x Maison Margiela
From Margiela’s Painted Studio to a RIMOWA Suitcase
LE MILE
In Martin Margiela’s early Paris studio, furniture found at the Salvation Army was brought together under a coat of white paint. The treatment later reached Tabi shoes and clothes, whose surfaces cracked as they were worn, allowing the material underneath to show through. His interest in what could happen to an object after it left the workshop continued into a 1997 exhibition in Rotterdam, where reproductions of his designs were treated with bacteria and mould. Visitors encountered clothes whose colours and textures were still changing after the exhibition had opened.
For the new RIMOWA x Maison Margiela collection, Bianchetto covers a Classic Cabin suitcase and a 5AC XL bag, although the work connecting them begins beneath the paint. RIMOWA’s aviation-inspired grooves, introduced on its aluminium cases in 1950, are formed directly into the leather of the 5AC, giving a supple bag the ridged surface of a hard shell. Inside the suitcase, visible seams and overlocked edges echo the bag’s exposed lining, carrying a detail of its construction into the case.
Both are painted by hand, with the finish intended to crack and flake as the luggage is used. At €3,200 for the case, its first scuff may still be difficult to welcome, even when the house has anticipated it as part of the design. Bianchetto brings the buyer into a process familiar to anyone who has worn Margiela’s painted shoes, where keeping the object in use gradually changes the surface that first attracted them.
The campaign gives that paint job the run of a Haussmannian apartment, spraying the luggage and the room around it until the pieces leave their silhouettes on the wall. The domestic setting recalls the technique’s beginnings, now restaged with the extravagance of a luxury production. What started with second-hand studio furniture has become an occasion to paint an entire grand Paris room.
The Classic Cabin and 5AC XL launch on 19 November 2026, priced at €3,200 and €3,600 respectively, through selected stores and both houses’ websites.
/ image courtesy of RIMOWA x Maison Margiela