GLOBALSensation
tumi’s top talent As one of the industry’s most visionary creative directors, Tumi’s Victor Sanz is ensuring that this icon of the travel space evolves into a full-fledged lifestyle brand with ultra-fashionable wares for men and women alike.
INSPIREd TRAVEL Recently, Sanz has visited the Hotel Puerta América in Madrid and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
FA S H I O N W E E K D A I LY. C O M
How did you end up at Tumi? Growing up, I always wanted to be an artist, and then I discovered product design and industrial design. I went to school at Pratt Institute, and then got my degree in industrial design. I was recruited right out of college to work for Kodak, designing digital cameras. It was an amazing time, when digital photography was really coming into bloom. I’ve always had a niche for fashion and explored that side of the creative world, but I never wanted to deep dive into fashion in regards to going to a fashion house or anything like that. But then I discovered Tumi, and it was amazing, because they were exploring the cut-and-sew aspect [of fashion design] but with a product design philosophy. Lucky for me, an opportunity arose, and I was brought on board in 2003 to bring a new attitude and younger consumer to Tumi, which at the time, was really known for its black bags. I was creating a ton of collections, and was getting a lot of traction, but then time had passed, and I decided to explore other things. After a while, I realized that my heart was with Tumi, and the CEO at the time called me back to the brand. Right around 2009, we
started a new journey—it was kind of a second phase within Tumi. The brand has opened itself up to new possibilities as we push more into the lifestyle element and collaborate with some really amazing people—artists, DJs, athletes. Just recently, I have been appointed as creative director of the brand. I feel really blessed to be able to be given the keys to the brand, allowing it to flourish even further. Now, I’m traveling the world and designing. It doesn’t get much better! How many collections are you designing in a year? And give us a sense of the size of the team you oversee. It varies from year to year, but we’re really focusing on our women’s opportunity here, and the team is actually quite small. It’s a solid core of about seven designers, including myself. Then we have a team of developers, both here in New York and also in Asia. We develop luggage collections and bags, accessories, phone cases, jackets, belts, eyewear… anything that we can think of to help protect that journey and to help our customers. How much time are you spending on the road? About six months out of the year. A lot of it is developing
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BY ashley baker
