How did this fashion collaboration with Rimowa take off?

“We have travelled regularly across the globe, to cities, resorts and far-flung shoot locations for the last 20 years or more. We have taken planes, trains, even boats to get where we were going, often with a lot of luggage.

Chaos was born out of the experiences we have had working and playing while travelling! Rimowa is our favourite luggage brand because of its quality and aesthetics so it was a natural fit for us. We were thrilled when the opportunity to create a full Rimowa x Chaos collection came about.”

Elements of art, design and pop culture inform what you do at Chaos. Did these inspire the Rimowa X Chaos collab?

“We are quite fascinated by wet paint and how it catches the light in a particular way. We are also drawn to the pleasing curves that form as it drips – there’s something immensely satisfying about the look and texture of it.

We wanted to create this same sense of freedom and movement over the iconic straight grooves of the Rimowa Essential suitcase. We decided to work with existing colours in the Rimowa Essential collection to see what kind of contrast we could achieve.

Our printed leather destination tags are either like mementoes of places you might have been, or inspiration to remind yourself of where you might like to go. We are graphic addicts and love playing with the emotions that different combinations of fonts and colours can evoke. We worked to create graphics and illustrations that had the energy of and references to the destination cities we had chosen together with Rimowa.

We are avid sticker collectors, so we enjoyed elevating the classic suitcase travel labels like First Class, and other symbols of the world and universe such as our Globe and cheeky Alien stickers! Our embroidered tags were simply three symbols in bright and happy colours that we visually love and of course, the inspiration behind the harness was from experience and need!

The harness is our answer to the many challenges of travelling. We are into solving problems at Chaos and we would be surprised to come across anyone who hasn’t at least once in their life not been able to fit everything into their suitcase on a return journey or not had the stressful moment of digging around an overly stuffed bag to find your passport. The harness allows organised, fast access to your headphones, book, passport, laptop, water – anything you need to keep close at hand.

All the storage is at the front – so, it’s still easy to place your suitcase in the overhead locker of the plane and it looks cool! [It’s] quite literally born from the love of the challenge in creating items that have a simple and efficient function, that look good and that help solves problems and needs. It’s fun to work out how to then bring that Chaos fashion element to everyday items making them look luxurious, stylish and desirable. It’s lucky as it’s our day job!”

How do you think the Chaos aesthetic disrupts what is currently seen in the designs of suitcases and travel accessories?

“It seems an area where designs are not that aesthetically innovative or playful. We have customised and decorated our luggage for years because we like our luggage to be as fashionable as our handbags, clothes, shoes et cetera. The majority of luggage is utilitarian and generic; although there are, of course, beautiful, classic luggage and travel designs like Rimowa’s that stand out. Our approach is to layer a sense of cool fashion fun across travel sets, giving the ability to have a unique expression of your own style.”

What did the full design and production process look like from start to finish?

“It was a really fun and seamless process between our design studio in London and Rimowa’s teams in Paris and in Cologne. We would send samples by e-mail or courier and kept refining until we got it right – thank god for Zoom!”

After working on several collaborations, what are the important factors to take note of when marrying your brand’s house codes with another?

“To make sure you hit the exact right spot where the two brand codes click and make a balanced whole. It is important to know what both sides are looking to achieve from the start, so you both have the confidence and the freedom to really play around to find that sweet spot.”

How was this fashion collaboration different from previous projects you’ve worked on?

“Every collaboration’s structure is generally similar. Working on a suitcase was a new one for us and of course, inventing the harness was totally new from scratch. But honestly, essentially the process of design rarely changes that much.”

From a fashion lens, what role does design and creativity play in redefining the idea of travel, especially during this time of Covid-19?

“I think we’ve all been reminded that nature is bigger than us and that travel is a privilege that should be deeply cherished and respected. As international travel begins to open up again, we wanted to give people the opportunity to express themselves with an eye-catching collection of travel pieces that could be styled to suit their mood. The Rimowa Essential’s iconic base was the perfect canvas for us to layer on our approach.”

What do you find most appealing in challenging the idea of travel and lifestyle with this new collection?

“From day one of launching Chaos, it was a dream of ours to collaborate with Rimowa. So achieving this is really satisfying but also to be able to spread this sense of the joy of making one’s luggage stand out.”

Although, we’re unable to fly abroad for now – what styling advice would you give to someone who’d like to dress the new accessories from the airport runway to ‘realway’?

“Pile it all on is what we are going to do! We are not known for holding back when attaching stuff to our stuff, we love the look of suitcases with as many accessories you can fit on! One of the embroidered charms, your favourite city tag, two packs of stickers at least and the harness… if not more!”

What’s your top must-have item from the collection, and why?

“So hard – it’s essentially impossible to pick only one, we think it would have to be the harness (pictured above) because this is the only place you can get one of these…”