Vintage Star Wars School Bags from Premier Luggage
If you were a school-aged kiwi kid during the late 1970s and early 1980s, you may have had one of these classic Star Wars backpacks. Made by Australian manufacturer Premier Luggage Company Pty Ltd, these vintage Star Wars school bags that were were available in New Zealand for a short time from 1980.
The Premier Luggage Company of Australia was formed in 1977, and made a few products that involved pop culture licenses. As best as we can tell, these The Empire Strikes Back graphics were the only Star Wars designs that they used on their products. The other main license that we’ve been able to find information online about are school bags of the same designs as these ESB products that bear the logo of the rock band KISS (via EverythingKiss.com).
Two Star Wars versions of this particular school bag were produced – one featuring the heroes, and one the villains, of the second Star Wars film. Here we see Luke, Han, and Leia, Chewie and Yoda, and the droids. On the imperial print we see Vader, Boba Fett, and a couple of stormtroopers. There is anecdotal evidence from multiple separate sources that this style of bag construction was produced for the New Zealand market, with a slightly different version made for the Australian market, featuring metallic clips with reflector elements as closures, instead of the dome closures seen here. Premier Luggage also made a sports bag which featured both of the heroes and villains graphic prints, one on each side.
The bags themselves are made from pleather and nylon. Black pleather with brightly coloured custom graphics of either Star Wars villains or heroes formed the front of the bag, while the side, back, top & bottom are coloured nylon, with several different colours being available for each design. Synthetic trim binds the edges. Simple webbing straps on the back are adjustable with metallic hardware, and at the top here, we have gold printing of the words “College Bag”. The interior has a structural base that appears to be thick, coated cardboard, and the underside has metallic feet punched through into this base. There is no label or mention of the manufacturing company, which has historically made research on the background of these bags quite challenging.
The silkscreened line art graphics are simplistic, using only the bare minimum of colour applications, but they are so nostalgic of a simpler time – everything about their appearance screams classic 1980s design. For those that had them, these bags are such a strong tie to growing up in during the time of Original Trilogy, because we literally used them as functional items five days a week, in many cases across the span of a few years.
