if you want to be cool there are only four relevant brands:
Rimowa
Tumi
Briggs & Riley
Luggage Works
now only douchebags use Rimowa and only Pilots use Luggage Works that leaves us with Tumi and B&R
my 1st luggage set was B&R and last year i upgraded to Tumi and gave my B&R to my parents
B&R is basically the cheapest luggage brand that doesn’t cheap out on material quality. It is very popular with Pilots, but also with people who want something expensive but practical and not flashy.
Rimowa is mostly all style with great feeling wheels and handles but thin on durability and organization. It’s great for people who have tons of cash and don’t care if their $2,000 luggage is destroyed on the first flight - all they care is they use the same luggage as LeBron and that everybody knows it.
Tumi is like the best of B&R And Rimowa in one brand - more stylish than B&R and more durable and functional than Rimowa. It is also in the middle price-wise, but closer to Rimowa.
but while Tumi is in the middle between B&R and Rimowa price wise it is not the average of the two, but the best of the two IMO. i would take Tumi over Rimowa even if they were the same price.
B&R is like Lexus ES - boring but dependable.
Rimowa is like Porsche 911 - it is iconic and it’s pricey and while good it isn’t perfect.
Tumi like Corvette ZR1X - it’s just best.
now if you don’t care about being cool and just want to know what is a reputable brand that is affordable there are two:
Samsonite and Travelpro
Samsonite is the parent company of Tumi and like Tumi is known for innovativeness and even uses the same exclusive composite material in their top of the range line as my Tumi set is made of … for 1/3 the price. but i have tried both at the store and while material is the same the quality isn’t even close. the material is much thinner and the Samsonite version isn’t even lined on the inside because the entire budget was spent on the material. also the corners aren’t reinforced like in the Tumi.
Travelpro is sort of the default go to brand when people shop for luggage. It’s like a poor man’s B&R. also boring and dependable but also cheap.
Samsonite = VolksWagen
Travelpro = Toyota
everything else - brands promoted by influencers on YouTube and other social media - is trash
it’s what somebody referred to as “millenial marketing products” - stuff that comes out of nowhere and pushed by influencers to people who do not know what quality is
so all of those YouTube luggage brands = Tesla, except they aren’t even innovative in any way - just random Chinese trash with a ( bought and paid for ) influencer stamp of approval
i will give them credit though - these millenial brands are usually more stylish than something like Travelpro but the beauty is skin deep
Personally once i saw the engineering of Tumi it would be very difficult for me to ever buy anything else. I feel like Tumi is on another level from everybody including Rimowa. It is the only brand that can really work for everybody - whether you’re an airline pilot or a fashionista. Yes i did see pilots with Tumi and also among 1st class passengers i would say Tumi is in the first place but it isn’t obvious unless you use Tumi yourself because a lot of their designs are discreet and you wouldn’t recognize them as Tumi unless you are familiar with the brand.
by contrast Rimowa is always recognizable even to people who don’t know the brand and only seen it in movies or used by celebrities. so you would likely recognize a Rimowa among 1st class passengers before you would recognize a Tumi but there are actually more Tumis there - they just blend in more, which is actually a feature !
some Tumi models look plain on purpose to reduce the likelihood of theft, which is another way in which Tumi is like the best of both worlds between B&R and Rimowa.
people on luggage messageboards joke that if you don’t want your Tumi bag stolen - stand next to somebody with a Rimowa.
truly Rimowa is for suckers.
on last couple flights my Tumi was the only flashy ones - everybody else basically also had Tumi but theirs were just black nylon ( Alpha collection ) while mine are a carbon fiber look ( and are actually made of composite material called Tegris ).
there was also some flaming faggot with a purple Rimowa. he was also a senior with a small frame. let’s hope he uses some other luggage on flights to Mexico.
the reason i went for Tegralite over Alpha is because it is half the weight. i knew that Alpha is less likely to be stolen but i already had the heavy soft shell luggage in the form of B&R and wanted to upgrade to lightweight hard shell.
that said Tegris is not a “hard” material. it is a flexible composite. it’s just hard enough that it doesn’t need a frame to hold it’s shape which is why the bag is light. but at the same time it’s flexible enough that it doesn’t crack if dropped.
on very first day my fully loaded suitcase tumbled down the flight of stairs and while the very thick corner guards got deep scratches on concrete and overall the bag got scuffed up functionally it was unaffected. so the Tumi proved its superior engineering to me already on the first day of use.
an the reason it tumbled down the stairs in the first place is because of the superior wheels. because it was my first time using it i had no idea how easily they would roll so there was a slight slope on my porch and the bag just rolled away.
later in the airport i noticed the bag wouldn’t even stay in one place on a perfectly level surface. it would spontaneously begin to drift either due to a draft or some imperceptible slope. it’s honestly ridiculous and i actually wish there was more resistance to rolling but Tumi was in a war with Rimowa for the smoothest gliding wheel and they took the matter seriously.