The Designers Behind RIMOWA’s New Flagship Boutique Share Their Inspiration With PSFK

As more consumers plan their post-pandemic travel, luxury luggage manufacturer RIMOWA has opened a new flagship boutique in New York’s SoHo shopping district. Working with designers from MA-MA and Mass Studio, the European travel accessory company blended together cues from the brand's iconic grooved aesthetic with the industrial nature of the store’s surrounding neighborhood to create the new flagship space, which is RIMOWA’s third retail location in New York. 

Central to the store’s design is the “RIMOWA Passport Studio,” a custom-fabricated photo booth designed as a polished stainless steel tube that serves as the visual axis of the store. Visitors can enter the photo booth’s backside through a curved sliding door, where, once inside, they are able to take their own complimentary passport photos. The smart-mirror photo booth inside offers users an elevated and luxurious photo experience, with optimal lighting, adjustable seating, privacy, and control over the process. The seamlessly automated experience provides visitors with travel-ready 2”x2” passport portraits that are printed on the spot and can also be shared as digital versions for safekeeping or reprinting. 

In this video, retail experts Piers Fawkes of PSFK, and Gab Baiter of Whereabout Studio, interview the designers Safura Salek and Sanam Salek, co-founders and owners of Mass Studio and MA-MA, about their pivotal work bringing the new RIMOWA space to life.