Jaden Smith and veteran buyer Sebastian Manes launch luggage brand

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By Luke Leitch

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Hollywood scion Jaden Smith and retail veteran Sebastian Manes have co-founded a new luxury luggage brand, named Harper Collective.

Launching online today, its range of hard-shell rolling cases are the first on the market to be made partly from reclaimed sea plastics, its founders claim. The initial offer of four differently sized cases, available in various colours, will also be sold at a new store-in-store at Selfridges in London, where Manes served as buying and merchandising director until last year.

The luggage market is competitive. Luggage manufacturer and retailer Samsonite alone turned over $2.89 billion in 2022, per the company’s accounts, and German brand Rimowa has the weight of LVMH behind it. Recent entrants to the market have either focused on the retro aesthetic (Floyd) or emphasising Gen Z values and modernity (Away). Some brands, such as Solgaard, claim to incorporate recycled plastics into a limited amount of their products; however, Harper Collective believes its use of reclaimed sea plastics to produce hard cases sets it apart.

Plastic recycling, however, remains a divisive topic. Experts have said that it isn’t as important as eliminating plastic production in the first place.

Manes says he has been incubating the idea ever since his work with Selfridges in 2011 on the launch of its Project Ocean initiative, which aims to raise awareness of the impact of overfishing and other marine-themed causes. “So much plastic goes into luggage, so it seemed obvious,” he says. “And, although there are many beautiful luggage brands, there is very little innovation in a sustainable direction. Although, I have to say, I didn’t fully understand the complexity of incorporating reclaimed sea plastics into functional recycled materials when I started this process.”

Developing the product has taken five years. Transforming mixed-source reclaimed sea plastics into a stable material strong enough to be used in luggage proved challenging. “We started with 98 per cent recycled plastic but found we could not effectively mould it into an effective end-product,” he says. The formula being launched contains 30 per cent sea plastic, 40 per cent post consumer plastic, and 30 per cent virgin plastic. Harper Collective promises its materials are recyclable at the end of the luggage product's life, Manes adds.

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The raw recycled plastic sheets are processed at a specialist facility in Germany. They are then moulded into shape in Leicester in the UK, before being hand-assembled at a partner factory in Blackburn. The cases’ linings are made of upcycled quilted fabric, courtesy of a partnership with British outerwear brand Barbour. Every partner company in the Harper Collective supply chain will be credited on the brand’s website when it goes live today. “This is what the ‘collective’ in our title signifies,” says Manes (while Harper is the name of his son). Each case will come with an aluminium dog-tag style label upon which customers can have their names stamped. Retail prices range from £595 to £795.

Manes worked at Selfridges for 19 years before leaving in December 2022. A brief stint at Chrome Hearts as director of European operations followed, before he decided to step back to focus full time on Harper Collective.

Smith came on board as a co-founder after he and Manes, who is leading the business, first met at a Louis Vuitton show six years ago. The multi-hyphenate – son of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith – heads up collective and clothing label MSFTSrep (or Misfits Republic) and founded non-profit 501CThree, which promotes equal access to food, water and energy during climate events. In 2015, he founded Just Water, which aims to reduce the amount of plastic dumped in the ocean by selling water in aluminium bottles and cartons made from plant-derived materials. Smith says: “What really drew me to lend my voice and expertise to [Harper Collective] was to be able to recycle plastic and to help push the narrative of upcycling within the world.”

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By Laure Guilbault

By Amy Francombe

The first line of Harper Collective cases is named ‘Ghost’, after the abandoned fishing nets that form a proportion of its materials. The designs are loosely based on the functional hard-shell cases used by professionals to transport photographic equipment and musical instruments. The wheels are relatively oversized and inspired by 1970s cars, and each case has 56 handmade rivets. As well as incorporating recycled materials, the bags have been rigorously designed during the development stage to be further recyclable. “There is no glue used anywhere in the assembly process,” says Manes, “and everything is hand-assembled. It is very old school, but with a new philosophy.” He adds that during the development process the bags have undergone thorough testing to ensure longevity and robustness.

Anti-plastics campaigner Siân Sutherland, founder of A Plastic Planet, says: “I celebrate the efforts to create something they believe is helpful to the plastic crisis. The development work is not to be underestimated.” However, she adds: “We have to ask ourselves what could have been achieved with that amount of effort and investment if we focused not on recycling any kind of plastic, which is last century’s material, but instead developed new materials that are completely safe for nature.”

Today’s launch is the first chapter in what Manes and Smith — who have self-funded the brand so far — see as an ongoing process of product development. “The objective is to disrupt and push the industry to normalise and accept the truth that we can, and in fact we must, take what has been discarded and repurpose it into something beautiful, functional and desirable. That is what we will continue to do, and that objective can apply to a lot of different categories,” says Manes.

The founders say they are committed to cultivating an economically effective model for the removal of plastics that are harmful to marine life from the world’s oceans. Smith says that, as the brand develops, its focus will remain resolutely fixed. “We are working to find more creative, innovative and appealing ways to create products from recycled ocean plastics and fishing nets. The idea is to take a problem that we are all faced with and try to find a useful and sustainable solution.”

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