Luggage Labels-A Lost Travel Art

I love travelling and and whenever I travel I always try to take a piece of that location home with me (it’s usually a postcard or magnet). For generations before me though, trips ended up being documented thru the gorgeous illustrations on Luggage Labels. But they were not placed there as a way to remember where you have been, there were other reasons these labels existed….

For today’s post I want to share a brief history of those reasons and then showcase some stunning examples of vacations gone by in sticker form.

Disclosure: Some of the links on my blog from Etsy , eBay, are Affiliate Links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

“What do we find on old luggage? We find the traces of… the places visited. We will follow these, and with them, we will tour the world, not in 80 days like Phileas Fogg, but much faster still.”

– Gaston-Louis Vuitton

Source: Etsy

The Brief History of the Luggage Label

19th Century-The Golden Age of Travel. Why? It was the industrial revolution and more reliable modes of transportation like trains and oceans liners were allowing more and more people to travel and see the world.

If you decided to make a trip via a grand ocean liner, luggage labels were created in order to keep track of all the luggage being brought on-board (trains typically used tags). They tended to indict the class of cabin for the traveler as well as as the destination of the ship (Source).

Source: Ebay

Hotels during this time utilized these stickers as a way for their porters to know which boat or train the guest was travelling on, but they soon evolved into a great way to advertise ones lodgings to people all over the world. The labels would become more and more sophisticated in design to stand out for the thousands of other hotels and destinations doing the same.

Source: Etsy

When air travel started to be accessible to travelers around the 1920s, they too jumped on the label advertising popularity to capture the “experience” of seeing the world from the air.

Braniff Airways circa early 1930s via National Air & Space Museum

By the 1960’s and the advent of jet planes, luggage labels disappeared as travel became more of a form of mass transit to be endured, and though baggage tags (not labels) are still utilized, many are very generic and not at all exciting (Source).

FUN FACT: Did you know that luggage labels were originally affixed with gum and so if you were to try to remove the label you would damage it (of course)? So when you find a mint condition label it’s because the traveler would ask for a second or even third that was never placed on the luggage, as a souvenir from their trip (Source).

Vintage Luggage Label Art Examples:

(please note that at time of posting the labels sourced from etsy and ebay were for sale)

BOAC British Overseas Airways.

Source: Etsy

1930s Hotel Splendide in Lugano, Switzerland.

Source: Etsy

Sport Hotel, Gerlos Platte Austria – 1950s.

Source: Ebay

1939 Golden Gate International Exposition San Francisco-World’s Fair.

Source: Pinterest

Luggage Label for the Hotel Oasis Alger.

Source: Ebay

Intourist, Caucasus Soviet Union.

Source: Ebay

The Excelsior Hotel was part of the CIGA chain from 1920 to 1985. The label below is believed to be from the 1930’s or 40’s; they came from a collection of labels gathered by twin boys who traveled Europe with their parents and acquired as many labels as they could get their hands on, not just hotels they stayed at.

Source: Etsy

1940s Vintage TWA (Transcontiental Airlines). Artwork by George Petty.

Source: Etsy

Hotel Victor, Copenhagen Denmark -1960s (This one is fun!)

Source: eBay

Hotel Union, Bucuresti Romania.

Source: eBay

Hotel Splendid, Monte Carlo Monaco.

Source: eBay

Strand Hotel, Darligen Switzerland-1960s.

Source: Ebay

Friends! What did you think of these lovely labels (Gosh the Typography alone is outstanding)? Did you have any favourites in the bunch? Do you have a collection of your own? Please share in the comments below.

Liz