HENRY SEUNGYUN YANG: I came to Singapore two years ago, after Samsonite offered an opportunity for us to move from Hong Kong.

ESQUIRE SINGAPORE: Why? Did you not like Hong Kong?

HSY: I loved it. It’s a wonderful city that’s geographically close to every other country somehow. It’s closer to Korea than Singapore, which made it easy to fly back home from. There are Samsonite factories in China and they are now also looking to Southeast Asia—Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam—so here I am. But my family is happy in Singapore, and if they are happy, I’m happy.

ESQ: Are you going back for the holidays?

HSY: I just got back from Hong Kong actually. I go to Korea only once a year because flying with a baby [sighs loudly] for six hours can drive anyone crazy. Now, I do love my kids, but they can be quite naughty and don’t like sitting still for six hours.

ESQ: They are girls, yes? Do you have any preference for the gender of your children?

HSY: I don’t have a preference. The second girl was delivered in Singapore, while the first one was born in Hong Kong.

ESQ: When did you start wanting to be a designer?

HSY: Honestly, I never thought much about design back then. I was like any other kid, who loves going outside to play. I think every designer and artist starts out the same way: by drawing something and then finding out that they’re having fun doing it. My parents didn’t really say anything to dissuade me so I kept on drawing.

ESQ: That’s cool.

HSY: Yeah. If you know Korean parents you’ll know they aren’t usually this liberal. They will be like: you’ve got to be a doctor; you have to be a lawyer; study hard. But I was lucky that my parents were open to what I could do. I did study hard, mind you, but I didn’t go out of my way to be a scholar.

ESQ: Did you attend art school instead?

HSY: A couple of my friends suggested I should go to art school or something. When I got into university and it came time to select a major, I thought I would be a painter. I spoke with my art teacher at the time and she said, why don’t you be a designer because they earn more money? It’s hard to survive as an artist. So, I took her advice and studied industrial design. I eventually got a job in Hong Kong.

ESQ: What did you work on?

HSY: Back then, I designed phones, conference systems, cameras... it was fun.

ESQ: Do you still paint?

HSY: Well, I’m a bit busy with my kids these days. I do draw for them though, and that’s actually really fun.

ESQ: Are you guided by some sort of design philosophy?

HSY: I honestly don’t know. I’m not a super designer. I’m just normal. I don’t have any deep philosophical insight into this. However, the environment at Samsonite is such that we gather a lot of feedback from the market because our main aim is to design for people who travel. And when you focus on the people who use our luggage and bags, you push yourself to deliver user-centric design. I guess that is the key to how I work.

ESQ: Is getting feedback from marketing conducive to what you do?

HSY: We have regional offices across the globe. So, here at the Asian office we design for people in this region. Similarly, the US and Europe offices design for their respective demographics. We design separately simply because people’s lifestyles and travel habits are different around the world.

ESQ: Can you give us an example?

HSY: The European luggage and bags are more colourful and sporty. Even the businessmen in Europe tend to go for more casual bags, more colourful bags. The design vibe is expressive. But in Asia, consumers prefer minimalist designs. Colourwise, they go for black or navy or something neutral. In the US, they like luggage that’s more feature-driven. It’s utility over appearance for them. I’m talking broadly about the majority of the consumer base now. We handle a wide range of Samsonite products.

ESQ: Do you also have to talk to the department behind the tech?

HSY: Of course. That’s actually very important. We have to be updated on the latest tech all the time. That’s why we have a strong product development team on site and they will brief us on the advancements. The marketing team, design team, the product development team will sit together to discuss what models will be released. Marketing can talk about upcoming trends and results of market feedback; the PD team wants to reveal a certain feature or new material. And we, the design team take all that data and come up with designs.

ESQ: Do you like that sort of restriction?

HSY: Every designer needs to work with limitations. Without limitations, that’s art. So, sometimes when someone gives me carte blanche to do whatever, I’ll be like, I don’t know what to do. It’s always good to have a guideline, a limitation. I prefer to have that. It makes it more interesting. You need the input and whole mindset of others to make the job successful.

ESQ: You designed the Unimax Spinner and it won the Red Dot Design Award.

HSY: I’ve no idea why we won it—I didn’t get to talk to the judges so I don’t know [laughs]. But like I’ve said, this is one of our visions at Samsonite in terms of brand image and DNA. Samsonite has all kinds of designs—minimalist, explicit, fun, colourful... we have everything, but what is Samsonite’s DNA? That is the starting point.

We had a line called EVOA—same texture, no groove, very clean design. It was very successful. We believe Asian people prefer minimalist design. So we start with that, and then we say let’s improve on it. [Takes a Unimax Spinner; points to features] We put in more features like a front opening; a brake system; the Aero Trac Whirl Suspension Wheel... Normally, you’d have the logo on the front of the luggage but we’ve added the logo on the aluminium corner protector instead, where you can still see it when you look down.

At the time, in order to get a seamless design [that has curves], you’d need to mill and bend the piece, and this was an expensive process. We decided to postpone it until we managed to create that aluminium bar and corner protector. For our future product line, we’ve now managed to overcome the limitations and found a way to mill and bend multi-directionally. I think only Samsonite can do this.

ESQ: Is there a particular product you’ve done that you’re proud of?

HSY: [Points to the Unimax Spinner] This would be it. ESQ: What about something that’s not Samsonite?

HSY: Before I joined Samsonite, I worked for a company called Kohler.

ESQ: Ah, okay.

HSY: There was this toilet called Numi. I quite like this product. Very proud of it, in fact. The initial brief was: what if we can make a supercar version of a toilet? Like a Ferrari. It sounded funny but I was quite ambitious. Ok, let’s make something cool. So, the Numi was given voice control, a lot of lighting options, seat temperature, sensors that know if it’s you or someone else...

ESQ: Oh? Does it have bespoke settings for individual users?

HSY: Oh yeah! You can set it up for five or six people. When you enter the bathroom, the Numi will make a sound and light up, the seat cover rises and you sit on it. So, your pre-programmed temperature and wand position are adjusted for you.

ESQ: How does it know it’s you?

HSY: It knows you by your height and weight. There’s a sensor there. And if you want to flush, you can just say, hey, Numi, flush. When it plays music, the lighting changes... it was quite a crazy project but our team loved working on it.

Funny thing is even, though the design is done, the project remained stalled when I left. They were still working on fixing the features and that was done with a year ago. I worked on Numi for three years and left Kohler about six years ago, and it went on for another five years but they launched it. Outside of Samsonite, I feel really proud of Numi.

ESQ: Is music part of your process?

HSY: That’s a good question. Music is part of culture, am I right? So, I believe it does help. But you’ll need to experience the culture that the music is from to actually see something different.

ESQ: What is this lens that you peer through?

HSY: Even though I’m way past teenage, I still like listening to rap and hip-hop. My wife is always laughing at me, oh, you’re not a child any more, you know? Why don’t you listen to classical music or something like that?

ESQ: The luxury market is trying to infuse street culture into its products and marketing.

HSY: I feel quite weird about that because the hip-hop that I was into back then was kind of niche. Back in the day, no one really followed hip-hop. A lot of Korean parents didn’t really like it, but it appealed to me. Now, hip-hop has become super popular and every brand is doing streetwear, and promoting their wares with modern music that feature hip-hop elements.

ESQ: It’s gone mainstream.

HSY: That is why it’s hard to say that I’m into hip-hop music now, because I don’t want to be part of this mainstream. If I tell people that I’m into hip-hop, they’d think I’m just following a trend, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

ESQ: What is that one piece of design that you wish you had done?

HSY: I like Fukasawa Naoto. He’s an industrial designer who did work with Muji. I like his philosophy. One of the things he said that really impressed me was that a product doesn’t need to stand out. It needs to harmonise with your life because you see it every day. That’s why his design is very minimalist. That’s a pretty strong message as an industrial designer.

Of course, I don’t really do it that way. I still like colours but I respect what he has built during his design life. I like Virgil Abloh as well. He’s gone now, sadly, but what he’d done for the fashion industry was quite amazing. He started as an architect but he’s done awesome stuff for Nike and Louis Vuitton.

(Salehe) Bembury is another designer I like. He also started out as an industrial designer. Ah, Errolson Hugh as well. He’s crazy good. I wish I could meet him one day.

ESQ: How do you stay creative?

HSY: One of the best ways is meeting people, eating good food, having fun, travel.

ESQ: That’s basically, just living.

HSY: [Laughs] Yes. Can I show you something? [Takes out a Streamlite Neo model] You see the clean design, right? But if you looked inside... [shows a vintage pattern], I found the design from the Samsonite archives. We have a black variant of the pattern as well.

ESQ: So, this and the EvoaZ and Major Lite are the next models we can expect from Samsonite?

HSY: We are still in discussion but we need to cater to different opinions. It’s up to marketing. I’ve no idea. This takes time but this is how we work. I’m ok with it. No harm waiting, we’ll see what happens. But if the project stalls too long, then we’ll lose the chance to launch it.

ESQ: Like the Numi.

HSY: That’s right. [laughs]

ESQ: What’s the next big thing in design?

HSY: Sustainability.

ESQ: That’s every company’s buzzword.

HSY: Yes, but we need to figure it out. Using recycled material, do you think that’s sustainability? I don’t think so. I think it’s more than that. It’s about the cycle. Using recycled material in the product is the easy part but that doesn’t tackle the root problem. There’s something more to this and I can’t put my finger on it just yet.

Oh, but this is too serious. Maybe, the next big thing is luggage for space travel, who knows? Maybe it’ll be a combination with a drone so you don’t need to carry your luggage.

ESQ: Or you can attach the drone to your bag and you can carry it so you can fly. Like Doraemon.

HSY: Yeah. Exactly. That would be fun. There are already people out there who can ride on motorised luggage. I’m not sure when a drone version would happen, but I look forward to seeing it.