Our Story

"Why JUUWU"

Ahh juuwu.. where did it all start?

Funnily enough, I think every story like this starts with going travelling, and mine's no different. But it's also tangled up with something I've had since I was a kid, this itch to make something, to design something that actually helps. Something that when you hold it in your hands, you just get it. No instructions needed. That's always felt like real innovation to me.

So if you'd told me my big contribution to the world would be a compactable hanging wardrobe... I genuinely would not have seen that coming.

But here we are. It started with hot feet. Once I started moving I couldn't stop, whether that was travelling for adventure, a trip just for the fun of it, or work in some country I'd never lived in before. I slowly got sick of gear that made me feel homeless all the time. I needed something more livable. Something slick, smart and ingenious.

So I did what anyone with too many ideas and not enough patience does, and started making my own.

I moved to Australia to fund the whole thing while still moving. Ended up living in four different places while I was there, moving my whole setup, prototypes and all, each time. Every weekend that wasn't spent working got spent camping or off on some trip, which, conveniently, was the best product testing I could've asked for.

That's juuwu. Not designed on paper, built by actually needing it, every move, campsite, every change.

"The research behind the bag"

It didn't stop at me just sketching things and hoping for the best. I spent time going out and visiting different manufacturers, sitting down with them, going through fabrics, zips, stitching, trying to find people who actually understood what I was trying to build.

I tested every version myself first, obviously. Wore it, packed it, lived out of it till I knew exactly where it broke or where it worked.

But the real testing came from handing it over to other people. I carried prototypes with me wherever I went and just gave them to other travellers, people I met on the road, in hostels, at campsites, and got them to actually use it and tell me what sucked. Some of the best changes came out of that. Stuff I never would've picked up on myself, because I was too close to it.

That's still how it works. Build it, test it on myself, hand it to someone else and let them test it.