Travel has always been an art from, but for DELSEY PARIS, it literally began with the arts. As the brand heads into its 80th anniversary this year, both fashion and travel enthusiasts alike are looking back to admire the journey from suitcase to statement piece. Many do not know that that DELSEY didn’t start with suitcases, but actually started with leather protection for the era’s most precious technology — cameras and record players. To learn more about the brand’s journey dating back to the 1940s, we chatted with newly appointed CEO Gilles Bariguian, formerly of Chanel and Ralph Lauren, who shares a look at the brand’s journey (and where it’s headed).
The beginnings of DELSEY Paris
DELSEY Paris first began creating protective cases in the 1940s for record players and cameras. “From the start, DELSEY was born from a union of two pioneers: DELAHAYE, makers of leather camera cases, and SEYNHAEVE, creators of protective cases for typewriters and record players,” shares Bariguian. “Their shared goal: safeguarding the era’s most important innovations. In 1946, the two families merged their expertise and names forming DELSEY – a brand that would carry their legacy forward. That conviction remains. In luggage, what matters most is what it carries. A suitcase is not just a container – it is a protective shell.”
While products from the brand today have certainly changed since the early days, every DELSEY product is still built with the same care and precision as the early phonograph cases. Today’s modern travelers find an intersection of industrial resilience and refined aesthetics in DELSEY Paris products.
“We call it intelligent mobility meeting expressive elegance. Like a high-performance timepiece, the strength of our materials gives the freedom to focus on clean, timeless silhouettes, while functional elements are seamlessly integrated into the design, invisible yet indispensable. With DELSEY bags, the consumer never looks like they are trying – effortless style comes naturally,” says Bariguian.
The brand achieves this balance by using advanced materials, like injected polypropylene and polycarbonate shells absorb the extreme shocks of cargo handling while maintaining a flawless finish worthy of a five-star lobby. DELSEY first explored this innovation with the 1982 CLUB and VOLUME collections, creating luggage that was both armor-like in protection and fluid in sculpted lines – an embodiment of French design.
Changing the definition of luxury
“There was a time when luxury was literally heavy. In a 1920s train station, a massive brass or leather trunk signaled status,” he shares. “It meant you had people to carry your world for you. Today, luxury isn’t measured by weight, it’s measured by freedom. The ultimate status is lightness. Achieving this is an engineering feat. We’ve moved beyond heavy containers to materials like DELSEY’s exclusive Vectrix™ – a self-reinforced woven polycarbonate that is incredibly strong yet feels almost weightless. Travel is lighter, but also smoother: wheels, once noisy and jarring, are now shock-absorbent, engineered with technology borrowed from the car industry to glide silently and effortlessly over any surface.”
Since revolutionizing travel in 1972 with the invention of the first trolley system featuring retractable wheels, the brand has continued to adapt and shift with the changing needs of travelers — but from a style and functionality perspective. In 2026, to celebrate its 80th anniversary, the brand will introduce its lightest collection yet, crafted from an exclusive material that proves strength, elegance, and feather-light mobility can coexist.
How Bariguian is making his mark on DELSEY
For Bariguian, bringing his experience from brands like Chanel and Valentino to Ralph Lauren and Tod’s means applying a courure lens to industrial design.
“In high fashion, the way a fabric drapes or the weight of a button is as important as the overall look. At DELSEY, this manifests in the tactile and sensory elements of our mobility solutions: the silence of the wheels and the softness of the glide, the multi-step trolley that adapts to each traveler’s height with a precise, reassuring click, as well as how a handle feels in the hand, the distinct sound of a zipper, and an interior lining as considered as the exterior shell – all coming together to create an unmistakably luxurious feel. The goal is to create an allure where every piece has a distinct silhouette and a level of detailed sophistication inside and out, typically reserved for the runway,” he shares.
Looking ahead: 2026 runways and beyond
“Looking toward the rest of the year, DELSEY is pushing the limits of materials by moving beyond standard plastics to embrace next-generation circular solutions, with a commitment to eco-design using recycled and repairable materials that reduce environmental impact,” Bariguian tells us. “As an example, in 2025, for our best-selling collections SHADOW and CRUISE, 5.7 million post-consumer recycled PET bottles (20g each) were used to create parts of the products.”
“At the same time, every bag is engineered for unmatched durability. DELSEY tests components through up to 10,000 cycles in our own lab, runs crash simulations, and evaluates materials under real-world conditions from Vancouver winters to the intense heat of a car trunk in Dubai. Humidity, acidity, and other environmental stresses are reproduced to ensure our products withstand the realities of global travel.“
