Verloop Knits founder Ella Lim is hard to pin down: She frequently travels between Singapore, the U.S., and the Philippines for work. That means a reliable carry-on is a must.

As part of her job as founder of Verloop Knits, a colorful, cheerful and sustainable accessories line, Ella Lim frequently travels between Singapore, the U.S., and the Philippines. A reliable suitcase is essential, and as a self-professed minimalist, she makes every purchase count. Here’s why her Muji carry-on — which has racked up quite a lot of air miles since 2019 — gets her vote for the best carry-on out there. 

“I’m based in Singapore now, and I do travel quite a bit to the U.S. to visit our customers and to see our warehouse distribution capacity there — and very frequently between Singapore and the Philippines, where our factory is based,” Lim says. 

It’s a trip she’s been making for years, even before she founded Verloop. “The background of my childhood has been our family’s knitting factory,” she says. “It was started by my grandfather in the ’80s, and back then we were supplying a lot of top American brands with their cold-weather accessories.”

After her grandfather passed, Lim’s mom took over the business. Lim went on to earn her MBA and spent some time in the corporate world before returning to the family factory to help her mother sell contract manufacturing services to American and European brands. It’s then that she was inspired to start Verloop.

“I just really wasn’t used to seeing the speed and the waste that was being generated every season,” Lim says. “I was more frustrated by the fact that, you know, we can do so much better, and we can make higher-quality goods, but the market just wasn’t really looking for that at that point.”

All the deadstock yarn left over from these manufacturing processes became the foundation of Verloop.

“If things don’t get used up, they sort of just end up in landfill, so I thought that there was an opportunity there — since I was on the factory floor — to try to design into that stock and come up with a more creative solution instead of just, you know, chucking it in landfill,” Lim says. “So that’s how Verloop started.”

Her focus on sustainability and minimalist is a personal philosophy that’s now writ large in her brand. 

“As a person, I really don’t buy a lot of stuff,” Lim says. “I really don’t have a lot of things in my life. I really try to live as lightly as possible. But when I find something, I wear it or use it to death.”

Case in point: The Muji suitcase that’s come along on all those business trips to the family factory — and beyond.

“My most favorite item to use [for traveling] is the MUJI hardshell suitcase,” Lim says. “It’s a very small carry-on. You can easily put it in the overhead, but I’ve taken enough stuff for a week-long journey. MUJI advertises it as a two- to three-day bag, but you can literally fit as much as seven days’ worth of stuff there.

“First of all, it has, like, a really minimalist, streamlined, well-designed aesthetic to it,” she says. “Everything’s really well thought of in this bag — even the compartments, the zippers, just the right amount of storage within it.”

It’s made to last, too: Lim’s used the same carryon since 2019. It also gets bonus sustainability points for benign made from recycled water bottles. “But the plastic’s just very durable. It’s not the wobbly plastic,” she says. 

Hold the brakes

Plus, it comes with a bonus feature you don’t see as often as you should with suitcases. 

“The great thing about it is that it has a brake. The brakes work really well, even if I pile on a lot of stuff in it,” Lim says. “So it’s very light, but you can easily brake it, and it stays put. So if you’re in the car, put it next to you, it won’t, you know, be flying around in the trunk or anything — or in the bus, or in the subway. It’s great.”  

True to Muji’s minimalist-but-well-made philosophy, “every single bit of this bag has been thought of,” she says. “You can just tell somebody was there thinking about what you would need. Minimal, you know, not a lot of bells and whistles — just exactly what you would need for traveling.”

Best carry-on for work trips:
“I mean, every single bit of this bag has been thought of,” Lim says about the MUJI Hard Shell Suitcase 36L Carry-On. “You can just tell somebody was there thinking about what you would need. Minimal, you know, not a lot of bells and whistles — just exactly what you would need for traveling.”