Make Your Travels As Nice As Your Christopher Howard Suitcase
Are your trips as nice as your luggage?
Your luggage deserves to go somewhere as nice as it. With Christopher Howard, it might change the way you travel, because you will only want to put these handmade suitcases in the best places.
For detail-oriented people, the travel starts before you even exit the door. You get your luggage ready and that’s when vacation or business travel starts. You leave your daily briefcase or bag behind and you want to be looking forward to your travel, much like the shoes you wear for only special occasions. The new finely-crafted luggage suitcase by Christopher Howard gave us this feeling as well.
What’s amazing about a Christopher Howard suitcase is the fact that they are made just outside of Toronto. After experiencing this quality and robustness of the case, you would definitely think that it’s made thousands of miles away by people in tailored suits, wearing loafers under the Tuscan sun.
The Cabin Suitcase by Christopher Howard
We had an opportunity to test out the Cabin Suitcase and we were very impressed. The traditionally-styled suitcase is a rarity in many ways with droopy black bags replacing the classic travel accessory.
The Cabin Suitcase brings that aesthetic back and modernizes it. The hard wood frame gives it it’s support, which makes it strong enough to stand on. The full-grain leather is tough with a soft black bridle leather trim around it with hundreds of nails evenly positioned and punched in. The interior cotton fabric of the case feels like it has been preserved for 50 years and it’s like feeling luxury luggage in the 1930’s for the first time.
The Cabin Suitcases come in two different sizes, Cabin 45 and Cabin 50:
- Cabin 45 – 45cm x 19.5cm x 33.5cm, Approx. 5.4Kg
- Cabin 50 – 51cm x 19.5cm x 39.5cm, Approx. 6.4Kg
What surprises us more is the style, detail, and style looks to be from a luggage maker from 50+ years ago, but the company itself was only established last year, in 2017. Christopher Howard is going head first into the luxury luggage market with people who are motivated by taking back the pride of travel through your luggage. Bring style towards monotone, standard luggage that darkens every room they are stacked in.
The hardware is tough, durable golden brass, but continues a great aesthetic, while contrasting the soft leather surrounding it. The leather looks tough, has brilliantly deep colours and brings a very classic look that will be an outlier compared to luggage sets beside you.
A few things to note, this type of luggage, because of it’s great built quality, may be heavier than what you are used to. Also, if you are looking for wheels, you won’t find them at the bottom of these cases. However, if you are someone who are in and out of cars, Ubers, and valet hotel carts, or a quick jaunt to your next destination, you won’t have a problem. Another wish list item, we would love to see a smaller, more briefcase size to replace a messenger or laptop bag, and inner pockets, but that’s from how we travel with our equipment.
The suitcases themselves are all handmade and can be bespoke to the preferences of the buyer.
Each collection is limited to a certain run of units and pieces, which means it’s very seldom you would switch up luggage at the airport or would be a rarity to be seen with the same colour schemes.
I can imagine if I saw someone else with a Christopher Howard luggage set, it would feel like I am meeting another watch collector who likes the same timepiece brand as me. It would be a common, yet exclusive bond between travellers, who are in-the-know.
Photos by: Steve Dolson
The Bottom Line
If you are looking for an extremely well-built case that has beautiful english-styling with full-grain leather, then the Cabin suitcase by Christopher Howard would be a great travel accessory for you. The handmade suitcases have a quality to them that’s admirable compared to suitcases we have tried before and it would be tough to decipher what you would be more excited for, the travel or planning your trip around your suitcase.
For more information about Christopher Howard suitcases, be sure to visit their new, shoppable website.