In a nutshell
A cool, meticulously lit luggage gallery that trades airport anxiety for downtown ease, this Mercer Street flagship shows how Rimowa can use architecture, archives and collaborations to position itself as the thinking traveller’s status symbol rather than just another suitcase brand. This is a gear shift from their packed 'cubby hole' on Greene Street, and shows the brand's extension in terms of range, ambition and awareness. The store attempts to balance world-travelled beater cool, with affluent and aspirational travel and support the brand (and its pricing) in the face of increasing competition in the affluent travel sector.
In their words
"RIMOWA products embody a commitment to the Art of Engineering, for a lifetime of travel."
Brand Background
Rimowa was founded in Cologne, Germany, in 1898 by Paul Morszeck as a small workshop producing wooden luggage and leather goods. The company’s defining pivot came in the 1930s, when a factory fire reportedly destroyed most materials except aluminium, prompting second‑generation owner Richard Morszeck to adopt the metal as Rimowa’s primary material.
In 1950 the brand added the now‑iconic parallel grooves to its aluminium cases, inspired by the fuselage of early aircraft, creating a visual signature that still defines Rimowa’s identity today. Over the following decades Rimowa developed lightweight polycarbonate cases, multi‑wheel systems and engineered interiors, positioning itself as a premium luggage maker at the intersection of aviation, engineering and design rather than fashion alone.
The brand remained family‑owned until 2016, when LVMH acquired an 80 percent stake, making Rimowa the first German maison in the French luxury group’s portfolio. Under LVMH stewardship and the creative direction of figures such as Alexandre Arnault and Chief Brand Officer Hector Muelas, Rimowa has leaned into collaborations and cultural partnerships - notably with Supreme, Off‑White, Dior, Porsche, Daniel Arsham and others - to reach a younger, more fashion‑literate traveller while maintaining its engineering credentials.
Rimowa operates more than 200 stores and shop‑in‑shops worldwide, with key flagships in Cologne, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York, and promotes a lifetime‑guarantee model that foregrounds repairability and longevity as part of its value proposition.
New York has long been a priority market. Rimowa’s first serious Soho presence was at 99 Prince Street, at the base of The Mercer hotel, where a compact 800‑square‑foot flagship opened in the mid‑2010s with a design by MA‑MA and Mass Studio that introduced the Passport Studio, a mirror‑polished cylindrical photo booth for taking passport photos - an early example of Rimowa blending service, utility and theatre in retail. The new Mercer Street flagship at 148 Mercer, opened in autumn 2025, consolidates that presence and significantly ups the scale. It is Rimowa’s third New York location after Madison Avenue and Rockefeller Center, but Surface Magazine notes that Soho is now the brand’s largest North American store and a “defining moment in its evolution.”
Visit Field notes
The interior is a quiet, industrial‑luxury shell that echoes both Soho’s cast‑iron architecture and Rimowa’s cases: brushed aluminium wall systems, polycarbonate partitions, white Corian counters and polished concrete floors create a neutral backdrop against which the grooved suitcases read as sculptural objects. A central range wall presents the full luggage line in a strict grid, while other zones highlight travel accessories, personalisation services and limited editions.
The Rimowa Passport Studio returns as a focal cylinder, offering passport photo sessions whose images can be printed on the spot or saved digitally, reinforcing the store as a pre‑journey ritual stop.
For the opening, Rimowa turned the flagship into a cultural event: Hypebeast and Surface report that the two levels hosted DJ sets by Paul Sevigny, portraits by Saturday Night Live photographer Mary Ellen Matthews, a hidden speakeasy bar serving martinis beside a display of the forthcoming Cocktail Case, and archival collaborations with Supreme and Rick Owens alongside a late‑19th‑century steamer trunk.
Custom Mercer Street stickers by Spike Lee and curated case displays from local figures such as Lee, Evan Mock, Patti Smith and Martha Stewart tied the brand’s 127‑year heritage to contemporary New York culture.
Artist Shantell Martin was commissioned earlier in 2025 to create a site‑specific black‑and‑white facade treatment while the store was under construction, turning the boarded‑up site into a temporary public artwork about movement and connection.
The Mercer Street flagship illustrates several current luxury‑travel retail themes:
•Using archives and collaborations to tell a long‑horizon brand story in a compact space (Louis Vuitton are leading proponents of this, and own 80% of Rimowa)
•Treating services like passport photos and repair as front-of-house experiential anchors - for footfall and credibility
•Using the store as an events space, linking with local creatives to embed a global brand into the cultural fabric of the neighbourhood (where "local" means global stars and "neighbourhood" means the world stage!).
Checkout
- the multi-floor 'tower of power' for the range
- visible and active repair and customisation areas
Other Reading
The store page on Rimowa's site
Artist Shantell Martin's page on her construction-phase artwork for the store
Details of the star-studded opening party on Surface
Archive: Superfuture's review of the previous, Prince Street store, with sumptuous photography and background, to see the evolution of the design language and visual merchandising
Brand story on the Rimowa website
LAST VISITED
11/11/2025
Added
2025
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