Ascona and HENK

I took a trip to Ascona at the weekend and had an amazing time sampling all that the area had to offer, nice food, wine, scenary and people.


In the evening whilst walking the streets I came across this stylish beauty, meet HENK.


The story goes that one Christmas eve, a Dutch real estate magnate Henk van de Meene found himself lugging a heavy suitcase through the snow outside LaGuardia airport. Struggling with the weight and awkwardness of his suitcase, Henk knew there had to be a better solution. He decided then that if the luggage industry wasn’t going to make a better bag, he would create his own - a strong, agile case.

After 10 years of tinkering and a protoytype getting lots of attention from fellow travelers Henk decided to manufacture it on a very limited scale. He then turned turned to frog design to help with the styling. Each case consists of 500 separate parts (more than 22 of them moving), fashioned variously from red Italian burl, black ebony, horse hair, magnesium, aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, parachute fabric and the finest leathers. Its mechanisms are smooth, ingenious. Depress an ebony button on the handle, pull up the handle, and two 6 1/4" diameter wheels emerge noiselessly from louvered doors within the case, like landing gear emerging from an airplane.


The result is the height of luxury, shared by word of mouth and sold to elite travelers the world over, Henk are hand made in very limited numbers per year in order to guarantee quality and exclusivity to customers.

And the price? A snip at just 20,000 swiss francs.