The London Lounge

Gents,

I was awaiting a script at the Pharmacy and dropped into a fancy luggage store nearby. They have a fabulous sale on great bags - about 40% off, so I am considering finally upgrading my luggage (long overdue) to protect my new Dege and Skinner threads.

My desire is a bag small enough to be a carry-on but that can hold suits without creasing them during a 12-hour travel time in the suitcase.

The choices are:

Hartman Luggage - have a small three-fold hardcase where the suit is hung up on a hanger, then folded three times. The half of the bag where any suits / shirts / jackets hang is protected from the rest of the bag so they won't get squashed. The bag is then wheeled on its end so the suits are on their side.

Boyt Luggage, or Briggs & Riley - both have bags only slightly larger than the Hartman (still could fit in an overhead and are two-fold bags where the suits etc would be folded in half (they seem a little tight, but I am not a tall jacked, so they might fit). in this case the suits are running the length of the bag and then the bag is folded in half at the 'waist' of the suits. The things I didn't like as much here is that the hanging garments don't have an enclosed space apart from the rest of the bag, so other garments would be in the center of the bag. Supposedly the snaps and straps would keep enough space for the suits to not be crushed. Also, this bag had outside pockets where additional items could go, perhaps then reducing the pressure on the suits inside.

The price on all the bags and their totes is about the same. About $50 more for the Boyt or hartman over the Briggs & Riley.

The Hartman has a lifetime guarantee against manufacturers defects and breakage (handles fall off from wear and tear, etc) while the others have the same plus cover damage from airline gorillas handling (or mishandling) the bags.

That about sums it up. All the combos of bags with attachable totes come to around $550 on sale. Any thoughts appreciated.

I know too little about luggage. But Glaser Designs has many good models.

I am somewhat obsessed with this topic so I've done a lot of research. If you are not so tall, say less than 6ft, Briggs and Riley make a single fold, hard sided rolling suit bag. So far it has fit in all overheads I have tried, which is a lot. As far as I know they are the only firm to make such a bag. The quality is fantastic, their guarantee is second to none (they will even repair or replace luggage damaged by the airline!) and the price is quite reasonable.

As you may have guessed, I am a big fan.

..

This is the model:
http://www.briggs-riley.com/travel/garm ... wheels.asp

Remember, if you are tall or prefer longer coats the last inch or two may fold over, but I have never had a problem and wear 40 regular coats.

I don't think trolley cases are particularly elegant.

How about a nice vintage English gladstone bag?

Well, you are right that trolley bags are not elegant.

Pretty damn pedestrian and utilitarian and no matter what you do to dress it up, it still can't distance itself from its black, ballistic nylon origins.

But I tell you, after schlepping nicer (no wheels) luggage around airports, train stations, here and there, I either have to pack much more lightly or go back to wheels.

I just can't carry these bags around any longer.

Plus no matter what you do, your clothes are going to get wrinkled and there's nothing wrong with that anyway.

A bespoke suit is meant to be worn, not coddled; and through wearing it, over years, and living with it, it finally becomes yours, and that kind of wear and use gives your bespoke threads its provenance.

I must agree with uppercase. There are two kinds of elegance, the visual and the practical. Rolling bags certainly are not an example of visual elegance but rather an example of an elegant solution.

I travelled extensively for 15 years and endured far too many airplane flights; during that time I never had a wheeled garment bag, but as a consequence I think my right arm may now be 1 inch longer than my left! Lugging bags through airports and hotels gets quite tiresome, although if your trips are only one or two days' duration the bags can remain pretty light.

I have no experience with Briggs, but both Hartmann and Boyt make very good products. I think I would lean toward the Hartmann, but there is not a great deal to separate the two manufacturers. My wife has a three-fold Tumi which is quite small and convenient for short trips.

All of my garment bags (a Wings and an Andiamo) have been the simple two-fold variety, hence bulkier but with far greater capacity than the three-fold.

One hint on the wrinkling front. Pack each garment insided a plastic dry-cleaning bag inside the barment bag. Most of the wrinkles in a suit are caused by the wool getting bunched up against something else and being unable to slide as the bag moves, and hence getting creased; the use of the plastic bag(s) allows the cloth to slide around and, in my experience, reduces wrinkles by 80% - 90%. It's really quite remarkable. Before learning this trick, I would have to steam my suits in the bathroom of a hotel for 15 minutes; after, they would be basically wrinkle free after simply hanging overnight.

lancepryor wrote:
One hint on the wrinkling front. Pack each garment inside a plastic dry-cleaning bag inside the garment bag.

This technique has served me well for the last twenty years. Even linen garments survive virtually unscathed.

This is the only reasonable answer to tacky roll-around luggage:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Louis-Vuitton-wardr ... dZViewItem

rip wrote:This is the only reasonable answer to tacky roll-around luggage:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Louis-Vuitton-wardr ... dZViewItem

Quite lovely indeed, but how does one fit it into the overhead compartment on the airplane? (Although I've seen people lugging packages seemingly not too much smaller onto planes!)

In opposition to Kant and in agreement with Loos I think that the visual elegance and practical elegance should be unified to project a singular elegance.

Therefore you should use the traditional luggage and purchase a trolly cart.

lancepryor wrote:

rip wrote:This is the only reasonable answer to tacky roll-around luggage:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Louis-Vuitton-wardr ... dZViewItem

Quite lovely indeed, but how does one fit it into the overhead compartment on the airplane? (Although I've seen people lugging packages seemingly not too much smaller onto planes!)

I believe the idea is to send it on ahead, along with the necessary entourage to move it from place to place (you do travel with an entourage, do you not)?

Of course, the entire idea of bespoke clothing is elegance, and elegant air travel, absenting one's own aircraft, is, indeed, an oxymoron.

Incroyable wrote:
Therefore you should use the traditional luggage and purchase a trolly cart.

An Interesting solution.