We invited designer Daisuke Kitagawa to fill a TUMI 19 Aluminum Suitcase with design-focused objects that reflect his life in Tokyo.

Our City in a Suitcase series takes a closer look at the art, design and architecture through the eyes of four international cities and creatives who live and work in them. Each will pack a TUMI 19 Degree suitcase full of items that they feel best represents their city?s culture. Take a look:

In many ways Tokyo is just like London, New York, or Hong Kong. It’s a densely populated city that dazzles with its bright lights and impresses with its diverse culture. But it is also uniquely Japanese. From the iconic Shibuya crossing, where people stream across five crosswalks simultaneously, to the musical restrooms, Tokyo is an absolute one-off. Having grown up in rural Shiga and graduated from Kanazawa College of Art with a product design major, designer Daisuke Kitagawa decided to make the Japanese capital his home. He worked as a product designer for NEC Corporation, a Japanese technology company, for ten years before setting up his own studio, Design for Industry, in 2015.
We visited Daisuke in his Tokyo studio to talk about how he works, where he goes for inspiration and what life is like in Tokyo for an industrial designer.

Since we can’t all explore the delights of Tokyo, we asked Daisuke to choose a selection of items to represent the city he loves. His choices include must-have travel items, produc...