January 11, 2026

Rimowa Strap On

A four-wheeled cabin case is close to perfect on smooth floors and useless everywhere else. Cobblestones, gravel, stairs, a platform with no lift — that is where it stops being a vehicle and becomes something you drag with one arm. The obvious fix is to carry it on your back, and the obvious problem is that a Rimowa has nowhere to attach anything to.

So the harness works with what the case already has: the handles, the shell, and the ability to wrap all the way around it. Nothing drilled, nothing glued, nothing that leaves a mark.

The Rimowa cabin case worn on someone's back as a backpack, held by two black shoulder straps with a pink strap running horizontally around the case — The case carried as a pack — shoulder straps over the shell, pink strap closing it around the body

It is sewn from seatbelt webbing on an industrial machine, with a roll of hot pink for the strap that closes around the body — pink so it reads as deliberate rather than as a repair.

Materials laid out on a wooden floor: black seatbelt webbing, a coil of hot pink webbing, buckles in a bag, scissors, a seam ripper, safety pins, and strap pieces labelled with masking tape

An industrial Juki walking-foot sewing machine set up on its table with spools of thread beside it

Close-up of the machine sewing a black side-release buckle onto the end of a length of webbing

The case being lifted onto one shoulder by a single strap, seen from the side against a winter river bank

Side view of the sticker-covered case riding on the back, with the pink strap wrapped around it and the black shoulder strap running over the shoulder

Back view of the harness: two shoulder straps running from the top handle down to the base of the case, crossed by the pink strap with its buckle

Every joint is a side-release buckle on a slider, so nothing is fixed to one piece of luggage: the straps let out and pull in to fit a different case, a bigger bag, or whatever jacket is underneath. It goes on and comes off in seconds and packs flat when the ground is smooth again.

Walking away along a leaf-covered path by a river with the strapped case riding high on the back like a backpack — Where the wheels stop being useful

The case is still a case: wheels down, handle up, unchanged. It just has a second mode now.