Luggage used to loom large in people’s lives.
Go back 50 or 60 years and you’ll find magazines were full of ads for suitcases. A common theme was that having proper baggage was the key to getting on with life. Luggage made for a fine graduation gift or wedding present.
It was also a marker of status. Nothing said you were in the chips quite like a mountain of matching cases. Of course, the sharp young woman in the flared skirt and bolero jacket standing next to the pile wasn’t about to carry any of it herself. Whether at a train station or an airport, one could hire a porter, a service that made traveling with suitcases feasible.
But sometime in the late ‘70s, the red caps and skycaps began to disappear. I blame Bernard Sadow.
An exec with U.S. Luggage, Sadow had the simple, brilliant idea of putting wheels on the bottoms of suitcases and attaching little leatherette loops with which to pull them. Who needed a porter when you could wheel your own luggage around? Not only did the wheeled suitcase put the porters out of business, there’s a (suit)case to be made that Sadow shares blame for the general shabbiness and discomfort of modern travel.
When luggage was handled by the professionals, one could wear a jacket and tie without the anticipation of flop sweat and exhaustion. But once suitcases could be rolled along, we found ourselves obliged to schlep our own bags to Gate Z-79. Loading ourselves down like pack mules does little to encourage dressing in anything other than T-shirts and jeans.
If only that were the worst of it. Having long since established that air travel is a style-free zone, all too many of our fellow globetrotters have taken that principle to its reductio ad absurdum. I will say no more about it other than to observe that among humanity’s most egregious abuses of technology must be counted nuclear weapons, box wine, and spandex, not necessarily in that order.
If the disappearance of luxe luggage contributed to making modern travelers victims of overcasual clothes (we might be called “casualties”), maybe there’s some benefit to be had from trading in our generic black rolling bags for luggage that suggests travel can be something other than a demeaning ordeal. Happily, there are a couple of choices for the traveler eager for something stylish — in particular, for cases with a retro sensibility.
My favorite is T. Anthony, an old-school maker of classic suitcases. The majority of T. Anthony’s cases do come with wheels, the realities of mass travel being what they are. But the company still makes traditional wood-framed, canvas and leather, nonwheelie grips. John Starr is the manager of T. Anthony’s shop in Manhattan. He says that the customer for the company’s traditional hard-sided cases are people who don’t carry their own luggage.
If you are being driven to the tarmac to board your GV, you can easily afford T. Anthony luggage and someone to carry it from the car to the plane for you. A large, wheel-free “packing case” in red, dark green, deep purple, or black from T. Anthony is $3,000. More elaborate choices, such as the “wardrobe” case with hangers and drawers, will set you back more than $4,000.
If that is too steep, consider a fairly new brand of bags with an old soul, SteamLine. Yes, the cases have wheels, but they look like what one would have the porters stack on the quay before boarding a Cunard Line ship circa 1936. They even make hatboxes.
Even if you are suffering the indignity of waiting at the baggage corral — sorry, I mean carousel — having made a connection through O’Hare, there is a benefit to having an elegant suitcase. Not only will you look good, you won’t have to fight through the crowd to paw through the generic, indistinguishable black roller bags for the one with your name on it.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How's Your Drink?
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Tags: Life, humor, Travel, Air Travel
Original Author: Eric Felten
Original Location: The death and life of great American luggage
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