Globe-trotter and entrepreneur Aidan Walsh is looking to make his mark in the U.S. with his Aidan luggage brand.
Founded in 2023 in Sydney, Aidan launched in the U.S. last year and opened a design studio in TriBeCa at 103 Reade Street in January. The company currently co-brands luggage pieces with the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys. It is also seeking to widen its U.S. distribution with upscale department stores, and establish a presence at the John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia Airports.
“As much as my business was good in Australia, it’s really a small country with 28 million people whereas America has 360 million people. So I thought if I can do this in Australia and replicate in the U.S., the brand could be highly successful,” Walsh said in an interview. “I decided to move to New York last year in January, purely because we had the opportunity to work with the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys. I thought, ‘Who travels the most? Sports athletes.’ They travel more than the average person. And isn’t it cool to see a sports player walking to the stadium before a game with your luggage.”
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Walsh acknowledged, “It was a lot of grind, a lot of hustle” before finally getting to present in front of the Yankees and Cowboys. “That was the benchmark for me to say to myself, ‘Let’s go ahead and expand. Let’s open up operations in the U.S.’”
The partnerships with the Yankees and Cowboys involves co-branding pieces, with players and members of the pro-sport organizations using the luggage, while staging brand activations at the stadiums, and selling the merchandise at the Yankee and Cowboy team stores, as well as on the Aidan website and on fanatics.com.
Aidan products are designed, patented and trademarked in TriBeCa, sourced with premium materials from Italy, Germany, the U.S. and Japan, and created for durability and style, and with several performance features, including German-engineered 360-degree run-silent shock-absorbing wheels and aero grade shells in both aluminum and polycarbonate; zipper-less luggage for added security and durability; TSA-approved locks; compression pads; compartments for organizing; lighter weights; front pockets for easy access to iPads, and peach fur trimmings from Italy. Walsh also plans to bring back a braking system so the luggage doesn’t roll away from you, add USB-C charging ports to the luggage, and introduce small tracking devices inside the luggage and outside on the leather tags.
Asked how big his company is, Walsh said it currently sells around 45,000 units a year, representing a couple of million dollars in volume. He has the capability to produce around 1 million units a year with 28 employees in New York and Sydney.
“We anticipate selling over 100,000 units this year,” Walsh said, with new wholesaling arrangements, more sales through the Yankees and Cowboys partnerships and broadening the range of products. “The Dallas [Cowboys Cheerleaders] have been instrumental to some of our success and obviously they’re great with content creation.” Sales are primarily out of the Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada. Aside from team stores and aidanthebrand.com, the brand is sold at Altman Luggage, Apex Luggage, fanatics.com and a handful of other stores.
Prices range from $395 to approximately $600, with team co-branded luggage about $700.
Walsh sees a market opportunity in the soft accessories space, meaning backpacks, cross-shoulder bags, toiletry bags, suit bags and shoe bags. “There are a few dominant players there now, but I feel if we can bring our aesthetic, our engineering and craftsmanship but make it functional, we could be a quite a dominant player in the soft goods space.”
A full range of duffel bags, toiletry bags and backpacks will be introduced at the end of August, including certain items co-branded with the Yankees and Cowboys. In addition, a lightweight series comprising a trunk, front pocket carry-on and expandable carry-on will be available for purchase at the end of July.
“Tourism being down is one thing, but I think if you can create a luggage brand that can be used daily, that’s something we’re really focused on,” Walsh said. “When you see our next range of collections, you understand that we are trying to be more of a functional daily brand than using our brand only for travel.”
The globe-trotting Walsh was raised in Broome, Western Australia, in a family of pearl farmers. Before launching Aidan, he lived in Monaco for five years, chartering and selling super yachts. “It gave me the opportunity to travel with clients to meetings, to trade shows, to boat shows all around the world. And for me, that had always been a big part of my upbringing, which was the maritime industry.”
After Monaco, he lived in California, where he invested in hospitality businesses in Los Angeles, among them the Hideaway, a Mexican fusion steakhouse on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, and New York, creating restaurants, nightclubs and events. He launched the annual “Rosé Day” festival held June 14 at the King Gillette ranch in Malibu. He also recently staged a Rosé Day during the Monaco Grand Prix.
It was on a 19-hour flight home to Australia that luggage entered his mind. “I was seeing the same luggage being wheeled past me,” much of it flimsy and unattractive. “So with a lot of time to kill I started researching luggage and travel. After landing in Australia, I basically said to my mum who I hadn’t seen in over a year, that I’m going to take off to Asia the next day and spend time in factories researching the luggage space. Six months later, I was living in Asia, in and out of factories every day. I found a true passion for the creativity and the manufacturing of luggage.
“As a founder and an entrepreneur, the biggest thing I’ve done is go out and actually do it myself,” Walsh said. “I learned to create, sketch, design prototypes and really manufacture from start to finish. I’ve spent months and months in factories around Asia, Italy and Germany, and really just got to know how luggage is made, how it works, how to put parts together, and necessarily create a brand that is focused around travel and lifestyle. So what’s distinctive between my brand versus other luggage brands is that it really comes from a place in my heart and a place of entrepreneurship in my life.”
He sees luggage as his “travel companion,” noting “luggage should reflect your style, protect your essentials and endure every journey.”
“I just couldn’t find something that really resonated with me,” that is until creating Aidan, he said. “I like to say if it’s going around a conveyor belt, you won’t lose it, because it’s a good-looking piece of luggage.”
