Open and Shut Case

The iconic Rimowa carry-on has traveled the world over since the ’50s. But how would three coolly individualistic women pack it up now?

- By Mark Holgate

Watching instructional packing videos on YouTube isn’t so much going down a rabbit hole as stalking a forever-looping luggage carousel: utterly mesmerizing, but you’re forever waiting to take something away. It’s entirely possible to learn how to pack for a transcontinental trip with only a carry-on, but there’s always one thing missing: the emotional impulse that drives us to get dressed every day.

That’s why we decided to ask three women—makeup artist Raisa Flowers, stylist Yohana Lebasi, and interior designer CeCe Barfield Thompson— to tell us how they’d go about packing only a Rimowa Original Cabin carry-on in a way that truly reflected their sense of style.

RAISA FLOWERS

Dealing with limited space does and doesn’t phase this makeup artist. “I always overpack, and my suitcase ends up being insane, but I am really good at packing my kit,” she says. “I can condense everything—it’s like playing Tetris.”

Indeed. Flowers reels off the kind of numbers that she’s toting, cosmeticswise, from the likes of Pat McGrath, MAC, or Make Up For Ever: Sixty concealers, 20 cream eye shadows, and numerous palettes—plus three or four sets of brushes, some of which belonged to her mom (the sentimental value means they never go near checked bags). And that’s just a fraction.