Evolve Luggage: Creating Beauty through Damage

I took a product design course where we were to collaborate with TUMI to conceptualize the future of luggage.

I was interested in creating novel customization in luggage.

How can we use damage as a source of beauty and storytelling?

When a consumer invests in a high quality luggage, any sort of damage on the luggage is upsetting. The first scratch, dent, or sign of dirtiness ruins the image of perfectionism.

However, by viewing damage through the lens of beauty and customization, one can build a personal relationship with their luggage as it collects the history of its usage. Travel is a time of memories, and much like how collecting visa passport stamps on an originally blank passport is a form of collecting stories, collecting visible aesthically pleasing damage on the luggage can be just as rewarding.

This project explores damage as a form of beauty in both hard and soft form factors. The hard form factor starts off with a uniform silver finish, and reveals a colorful design underneath overtime
via abrasion. The soft form factor uses the cracking of trapped metal leaf to record where the material experienced impact, was stretched, and was folded.

In the exploration of this project, it is imperative to not sacrifice the actual quality of the luggage’s function, but to augment the aesthetic experience of the luggage on top of it.

The first step was to find examples of damage as a form of history and beauty, incluing: kintsugi - the Japanese art of fixing ceramic cracks with gold, the shining of metal through touch in doors, railings, or pieces of art, and worn leather.

I also looked into examples of beauty through damage in luggage and fashion.