Michael Petry joined Tumi as creative director in July with an impressive resume in tow. The designer’s career kicked off at Adidas in the soccer category, which was followed by design director roles for Ralph Lauren footwear and Prada’s Linea Rossa line.
Those experiences eventually triggered some contemplation about his future trajectory. “I thought, ‘How am I going to grow in life?’” Petry said over a recent coffee at Hotel Les Bains in Paris (he was in the French capital for CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund’s Americans in Paris underwritten by Tumi). “I have been a design director at both Ralph and Prada, but for the next stage, I wanted to become a creative director and have the opportunity to get my hands on an entire brand.”
That chance came his way via Frye, where, for eight years, he honed his creative director skills, ultimately landing him the current gig at Tumi.
Tumi is best known for its premium luggage, though Petry maintains that there is much more to the brand than meets the eye.
“It’s not just a luggage brand, it’s a lifestyle brand,” he explained. “How do we get involved with peoples’ everyday lives? How do we impact them on a daily basis? The way we do it is through the products we make. We are known for functional products. People tend to associate function with being ugly but functional doesn’t mean that it has to be ugly.”
And judging from his first collection for the brand, Petry is well on the way to dispel the notion that function and fashion can’t go hand in hand. “The collection looks noticeably different,” he said. “It has all the DNA the brand stands for but it looks more contemporary than it has.”
The impact can be seen from totes to outerwear to the electronics category, which includes wireless headphones, travel adapters and phone chargers. The sentiment was especially visible at the Americans in Paris showroom. Petry collaborated with the eight participating designers, who were tasked to reinterpret a tote from his first collection for Tumi in their own DNA. The one-of-a-kind pieces, all made in Brooklyn, were available in an online contest on Tumi’s web site.
“It’s always fun to collaborate with other people,” Petry noted, “We asked ourselves, how do allow these eight designers to express themselves with our basic components—which kind of almost goes back to an art school project. There is no pressure. You don’t have a sales quota to hit so have fun with it. The bags are a pure expression of each designer.”
For Tumi’s creative director, such projects are a key ingredient in the creative process. “Every time we received one of the bags,” he recalled, “it felt like it was Christmas. We are really excited.”