When Daniel Arsham is porting his precious sculptures to and fro, the last thing he wants to worry about is an eroded artwork getting further chips or cracks from careless handling. These things are supposed to only be touched by time, after all. Enter RIMOWA, the only luxury luggage label capable of bringing to life Arsham's vision of futuristic carrying cases with ultraspecific needs.
That's the thinking behind the bespoke RIMOWA Pilot Case that Arsham created, which sports a compact body capable of containing a specific creation.
But, before we go inside, behold the exterior. Arsham's Pilot Case boasts RIMOWA's signature ridged aluminum per usual but etches co-branding across its surface, achieving the appearance of a well-traveled piece of luggage loaded with stickers from all sorts of exotic destinations.
It's just that, in this case, it's Studio Arsham branding and a revamped RIMOWA logo that places Arsham in the place of RIMOWA's time-honored porter character.
You can use this bad boy as a hardy carry-on case, of course, but the real appeal is what comes inside this unique container.
To reflect inspiration drawn from traveling DJs, Arsham devised an eroded turntable that's both safely sequestered within the Pilot Case, should you wish to take it anywhere, and worthy of display as a proper artwork itself.
The result is a project slightly more ambitious than Arsham's initial RIMOWA partnership, which yielded a similar two-piece collaboration of thematic artwork and custom carrying case.
Not only is gear for traveling musicians a frequent touchstone for LVMH's bag designers but RIMOWA in particular is focused on that theme, having just debuted a Daft Punk remix in its latest campaign and tapped pop star Rihanna in the past.
Releasing October 7 on Daniel Arsham's website, the artist's latest RIMOWA collaboration is a reminder that utilitarian stuff like travel gear can itself be as beautiful as any museum-worthy creation. So why not put them together?
