Corroon. Beautiful things for the well-travelled.
Sort of says it all. We want you to meet Kelly Corroon. Her eponymous collection of travel bags and essentials will elevate your entire travel aesthetic and experience.
Kelly’s company, Corroon, grew from her long-standing love affair with travel, from a firm belief that seeking out adventures in distant places has a return that is like no other. To Kelly, the notion of “journey” is where the heart of the body of life can be found.
Corroon bags are the ultimate expression of a quiet elegance that has been modernized with bold and unexpectedly fun details, all with a practical and utilitarian edge.
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Your bags are amazing. We love how they look, first and foremost. But then to carry them, this takes it to the next level. You say your collection has been “designed to make traveling easier,” tell us what that means.
Thank you so much. We've designed our pieces to be multi-functional and lightweight.
All of our totes are 2-in-1 and sometimes 3-in-1, where there are compartments that snap out and become smaller bags for trips to town or dinners out.
You don’t have to think about it if you forgot a clutch or you don’t want to drag your huge tote touring around with you—we’ve sorted it out for you. We have also sourced this super-lightweight canvas from England that is stain and water resistant to keep things as light as possible. There is nothing worse than having a bag that is heavy before you even put a sock in it. We think about efficiency and function with every detail, while still trying to keep it chic.
What made you decide to create your own collection of bags and travel essentials?
Travel has been my passion for as long as I can remember, and it was absolutely the driving force for starting Corroon.
I grew up with a lot of stories and photos of my great aunts and great-grandmother widely traveling before women really did so on their own. I covet the age where you had elegant trunks and went by train in an amazing outfit—when the “journey” was part of the adventure.
I honed what I felt was necessary and what was superfluous in travel bags after years of raising my kids abroad and schlepping them back and forth between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the US. Some of my favorite destinations or travel experiences have become the bag names at Corroon.
What have been some of the highs and lows of starting your own business?
There are so many in one given day—in one given hour—when you have your own business, as you well know. I would say that it has taken us almost three years to evolve the product into what I envisioned when we launched.
The highlights are, of course, feeling like you’re making products that customers love. We have a very high repeat-customer base, which is very gratifying. Seeing one of our bags “out in the wild,” in an airport or on the street drives it home that we’ve made it out of the “garage” phase of our business. That’s fun.
There is an opportunity to personalize your bags with monograms, stripes, stars, or adding bespoke designs, creating room for really fun expression and originality. How does the customization work?
This has been the great surprise—and the great pleasure of the business. It was the two “Veronicas” at Veronica Beard, a store that carries our collection, who wanted to do some painting on the bags for a special event. It took off, and the personalization has become a huge part of our business. We have color cards, and you choose your stripe design, your colors, and we can add any sort of fun detail or personal icon.
What I love about it is that these bags are really the canvas to show off our customers’ own personality and creativity. We love it when clients take risks with unusual colors or icons. There have been a ton of fun ones. I have not ever painted my own bags as I cannot decide what to do, each new one that comes in the door is my favorite! They are all hand-done by our hugely talented team of artists.
Your tote bags are designed with travel and destinations in mind, but we can envision carrying these day-to-day, as well. They are lightweight, waterproof, and have great pockets, excellent for organization. How do you use yours?
I am not precious with them. They get shoved in my locker at Soul Cycle, thrown under the airplane seat, and filled with everything you can imagine on any given day.
I love that as they get worn, they get softer and more textured. They have been designed with an old-school aesthetic, so they are meant to look well-loved.
The smaller accessories, like our “Go” bags, which are a set of three, are my saviors on long trips to keep everything organized—chargers, toiletries, paperwork. Because our totes are generally oversized, I find it imperative to have smaller bags inside to make things easier to find.
Packing can be such a puzzle and a challenge. How do you pack for a trip? Do you pack with a theme? Any suggestions are welcome!
First of all, I am a last-minute girl in so many aspects of my life, but not packing—it’s too stressful. I always start laying pieces out at least a week before. I am going to Peru next week and right now I have a pile of hiking boots, a backpack, and t-shirts on the floor. I will edit and add to it all week. Having a head-start makes me feel much calmer the day before things get zipped up.
I try to pack by color theme, so if I am bringing brown shoes, I try to make sure that all my outfits are going to work with that color. If the dress code for something is different than what you had expected, you have the flexibility to mix things differently.
Wanderlust. A very real phenomena. And your blog is an armchair traveler’s dream, with stories recounting trips taken to Kenya, Iceland, Moscow, Japan, Peru, Mexico, the list goes on… What is your favorite destination?
Terribly hard to choose. I have been to Africa a few times, and it sneaks into your soul in a way that is hard to shake. We are always excited to have our clients write about their own journeys for us, and that has become a very popular content part of our site.
Your logo is a crisply painted, beautiful, red swallow. This symbolizes flight, yes, but it also evokes a beautiful and steady independence, a sense of exploration and seeking. How did you choose this to represent your collection?
British sailors would get a swallow tattoo before they left for battle, and another one when they came home, signifying a safely completed tour of duty. We think it is a beautiful symbolism for travel.
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Thank you, Kelly! We love that your collection evokes those bygone days when an understated, dignified aesthetic defined how we travelled. And, even more, we appreciate how you’ve moved this nostalgia forward, allowing for easier—but still stylish—travel in today’s very hectic and demanding world.