Fawn Design

The first 1,000 Fawn Design bags were paid for by a 15-day Kickstarter that was not halfway to its $25,000 goal at the midpoint. It finished at $42,000. The diaper bag company, which the Daily Herald profiled in Lehi, Utah, in 2019, had already been turned down for bank loans.

Jenny Wecker learned to sew from her mother at age 5, and as a young adult she worked as a dental assistant. A friend who was expecting could not find a diaper bag she liked, so Wecker sewed her one in faux leather and gave it to her as a baby gift. Friends of the friend asked for the same bag, and the first year Wecker made just under 100 of them, four hours apiece, sewing until three or four in the morning after a full day at work. Wecker designed the Original around a minimal shape, a half-round zipper top and backpack straps, in a polyurethane faux leather that the company says has no BPA, PVC or lead.

A manufacturer quoted $20,000 for 1,000 bags. Banks said no, which Wecker told the Daily Herald she understood: "I wouldn't have given me money either." So she and her husband set up a Kickstarter as a pre-order. The first manufacturing order arrived at their parents' home, and the 400 Kickstarter orders shipped from there. When the postal carrier came for the pickup, he arrived in a regular mail truck, looked at the garage and said he would need the big truck. The other 600 bags sold in a few months.

The signature bag is the Original, which the company says has 12 pockets and wears as a backpack or messenger style. Fawn's lineup grew to include a Mini, a Tote, a Weekender and the Fawny Pack, and in 2019 Wecker still designed every product herself, a process that could take up to a year for a new bag. The company had a 13-person team then and expected to be sold in Nordstrom stores soon. It also chose a charity each quarter to receive donated proceeds.

Fawn Design says its bags are produced in China. According to Utah Valley University, Cole and Jenny Wecker held 100 percent of the company until they sold it in 2024, so this listing is about where it started. Everything after the first bag, from the Kickstarter to the big truck, came from one friend asking for a bag she could not find.