Savour International

An antique trunk can run you as much as a middle-class car – providing it’s from the right manufacturer. For example, you can easily shell out a five-figure sum for a leather-covered Louis Vuitton portable clothing closet.

The trunk with the hefty fittings is large and unwieldy, and its red-clad interior meticulously divided into a series of shoe box-like compartments.

The antiques dealer enjoys having his customers guess what the trunk, which dates from 1911, was originally used for.

 

But most people are unable to come up with the right answer: 19th-century globetrotters used this type of trunk to cart their Encyclopaedia Britannica around with them, as its tomes were regarded as an indispensable source of information – a kind of Google avant la lettre.

Right next to the “google” trunk is the 1920’s equivalent of a laptop – a huge item with robust handles that just looking at is enough to give you a backache. When you tilt the trunk’s lid forward, a genuine mini-office appears, replete with a foldaway table, file compartments, and drawers, all deftly arranged and meticulously crafted.

“These trunks date from the golden age of travel,” the dealer explains. “At the time, wealthy people often travelled with their families and entourage for months at a time carting anywhere from ten to fifteen trunks along with them. People travelled differently back then.”

And indeed, the traditional grand tour of Europe could easily be a six-month affair, during which people were known to change location several times a day. And Louis Vuitton, who opened his first luggage store in Paris in 1854, outfitted the rich with the products they needed to tote their belongings around with them.

Camphor wood for furs, aluminium for safaris

As Louis Vuitton’s company history relates, their first coup was the invention of a flat-topped trunk that lends itself to stacking. Vuitton made camphor-wood trunks for furs to keep moths at bay, while safari-goers favoured trunks made of the then-revolutionary material aluminium. Shoes were packed in a separate trunk containing deftly realised compartments, and daily wear was carted around in a mobile closet with foldaway hanger bars and underwear drawers.

Contemplating these massive trunks evokes a bygone era, where travelling was still an adventure, hand luggage hadn’t been invented, and no one in their right mind would have dreamed of carrying his or her own belongings in a backpack or a rolling suitcase. Travel back then involved effort and adventure – an undertaking freighted with imponderables both large and small. Clothing trunks, shoe trunks and portable desks enabled travellers to make unfamiliar places seem a bit more familiar, and at the same time to lead the semblance of a normal life while abroad.

Although air travel was the death knoll for the practice of toting one’s belongings around in a trunk, antique trunks dating from 1880 to around 1930 remain popular. The well-heeled in today’s mobile society have recognised the iconic value of these trunks; for people who spend a lot of time travelling enjoy having an old trunk back home. And contradictory though this may seem, the fact nonetheless remains that decorativeness wins the day, and even fancy hotels are fond of using antique Louis Vuitton luggage as decor elements.

Teen idol Zac Efron shelled out 40,000 euros two years ago for a 1920s Louis Vuitton closet trunk, which he gifted to his then-girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens. But less pricey items of this kind are to be had. The German auction house Hampel sold a small trunk of the same vintage for 1,400 euros, while a somewhat older and larger trunk went for 3,600 euros at another German auction house (Zeller).

 

 

1 | Antique trunks can be accurately dated based on the colour and/or pattern of their linings. Louis Vuitton’s monogrammed fabric was first introduced in 1896.
2 | Travellers who valued their footwear packed them in a separate, robust trunk.
3 | A trusty companion: trunks from a century ago were designed to serve their users during lengthy trips abroad.
4 | Portable clothing closet: today’s air travellers can only dream of having such an abundance of well organised space for their clothing. Unless, of course, they travel by private jet.
5 | A Vintage Luggage Company antiques dealer repurposed this antique portable clothing closet ...