Following on from his recently completed shoe design for Nike, Marc began to draw parallels between Zvezdochka and his commission to design luggage for Samsonite; both, for example, come in contact with the ground and both have to deal with durability issues. He sought to design a material for the luggage that was very light, yet durable. Some of his design work at Nike involved experimenting with thermo-polyurethanes and polyethylene foams and laminating different materials together. He experimented with laminating a ballistic mesh on foam to make it durable; the result did not show signs of fatigue or wear, and it became the carapace of the product. Thanks to this innovation, the range represented a new typology of bag –neither soft nor hard– a hybrid that was completely novel at the time.