I’m having a vintage travel kind-of-a-day here at Ellie & Co for some reason. Probably because I just spent too long looking for vintage hotel and airline luggage labels, and flicking through my copy of this vintage travel magazine. Which leads me nicely into today’s post about a little shop in Madrid that sells vintage suitcases. So next time you’re in Spain…
Welcome to La Casa de Maletas – House of Suitcases – a shop set within a no-frills storage unit crammed with no fewer than 1000 vintage suitcases! It’s been open for 16 years and is run by a lady called Isabelle – there she is below at work – and her two sons. All of them wear white jackets to handle the bags, which gives added importance to their work.
I discovered the shop on this cool website written by English girl, Leah, who spends her time “exploring the Madrid that nobody else will”. My favourite places from her site I turned into a mini guide to Madrid, which includes this shop, which deserves a blog post all of its own.
Many of them have stickers on of old hotels. Some of these hotels still exist, and others have since been demolished. These stickers used to be a source of pride for the traveller, especially if you stayed in a fancy hotel.”
I can’t help wondering about the journeys each of these old suitcases has been on; how many miles they’ve travelled, before ending up in a storage unit, albeit a cute one, awaiting their next adventure.
Each suitcase is for sale. Isabelle also hires them out to film companies for shoots. A visit to La Casa de Maletas is certainly on the top of my Madrid to-do list…
Here’s something else you might like to know. The original photo Leah posted on Instagram of this little storage unit shopfront went viral and is now featured in the new Accidentally Wes Anderson book.
Read Leah’s full story on La Casa de Maletas here.