Who founded Wool & Oak?

Not in a boardroom. Not with a business plan. With a broken bag and a question that wouldn't let go.

Two Dreamers, One Building

Gizem grew up in Berlin. She loved television — the way stories could cross borders before people did. She learned English early, long before she needed it, as if she already knew where she was going. She dreamed of New York City the way some people dream of Paris: not as a fantasy, but as a certainty. She just hadn't arrived yet.

Jonathan grew up in Atlanta. He studied fashion in Los Angeles, then moved to Rome on a scholarship — drawing, cutting, learning how fabric behaves when you ask something honest of it. Rome taught him patience. LA taught him ambition. Atlanta taught him to keep going when nobody's watching.

They both ended up in New York. Same building. Same year. The city has eight million people and they shared an elevator.

He pursued her. She resisted. He tried again. She said yes.

They were broke. They were dreaming out loud in coffee shops and on fire escapes. They were living out of bags before they ever thought about making one.

The Bag That Broke

Jonathan had a duffle bag he loved — the way you love something you've carried through enough airports and train stations that it starts to feel like an extension of yourself. He brought it on a trip to Italy. It didn't survive.

The seam split. The zipper gave. His laptop cracked inside it. Standing on that platform in Florence, holding the remains of a bag that had been everywhere with him, he was frustrated. Gizem looked at the mess and said the words that changed everything:

There has to be a better way.

Not better as in slightly improved. Better as in rethought from scratch. A bag that could carry a suit without wrinkling it. That could hold a laptop without risking it. That could go from a train in Tuscany to a meeting in Midtown without needing a second piece of luggage. A bag designed by people who actually travel — not by people who design bags.

They started sketching. On napkins. On the backs of receipts. On anything flat enough to hold a line.

The Duffle Suitcase

Their first product was the Duffle Suitcase — half duffle, half carry-on, entirely unlike anything else. They had no factory. No funding. No experience in manufacturing. Just Kickstarter and nerve.

They put it up. People funded it. Overnight, they were business owners.

Accidentally. Terrifyingly. Beautifully.

No outside investors. No venture capital. No one in a conference room telling them to make it cheaper, cut corners, use cheaper leather — and only full-grain leather, never corrected or bonded. Just two people who believed a bag should be as intentional as the person carrying it.

The Name

Wool and Oak.

Soft and adaptive. Rooted and strong.

Like fabric and furniture. Like her and him. Like the kind of brand they wanted to build — one that could bend without breaking, grow without forgetting where it started.

It wasn't a name they workshopped in a branding meeting. It was a feeling. Two materials. Two qualities. Two people trying to make one thing that lasted.

The Nova

After the Duffle Suitcase, they kept building. Each product a little more refined. Each design a little closer to the thing they'd been chasing since that train platform.

Then came the Nova.

Their last crowdfunding campaign was different. It wasn't a test or an experiment. It was a statement. Over one million dollars in a few days. Not from investors. From travelers. From people who saw the product and understood, instantly, what it was for.

The Nova didn't just carry things. It reimagined how to move through the world — a garment bag, a carry-on, and a weekender in one piece of full-grain leather. It arrived wrinkle-free, packed flat, rolled smooth, and looked like it belonged in a first-class lounge even when its owner was in economy.

Garage to Headquarters

They moved to Los Angeles. Not for the weather — for the space. A garage became a warehouse became a headquarters. The kind of place where the founders still pack orders, still deliver bags, still answer every email.

That's not a marketing line. It's a Tuesday.

They argued about font sizes. About whether taupe is a real color. (It is. It isn't. The debate continues.) About how many millimeters of stitching margin is acceptable on a leather edge. About everything — because everything matters when your name is on the bag.

But on integrity, there was never a debate. No shortcuts. No cheaper leather when the good stuff got expensive. No investor telling them quarterly numbers matter more than quality. Because there is no investor.

What We Believe

Jonathan believes that if you keep going, the world will eventually catch up to your vision. That stubbornness, when aimed at the right thing, is indistinguishable from faith.

Gizem believes that good ideas arrive disguised as problems. That the broken bag on the platform wasn't bad luck — it was an invitation.

Together, they believe that a company can be small and excellent. That you don't need a hundred million dollars to make something worth owning. That two people with a clear vision and an unwillingness to compromise can build something that lasts.

Wool & Oak was founded in NYC with zero outside investment. Bootstrapped from a Kickstarter campaign. Built by a husband and wife who are still running the company, still making the decisions, still obsessing over every stitch and every detail.

The Numbers That Matter

Not venture capital raised — zero. Not ad spend or influencer budgets. The numbers that actually matter:

• 4.6 stars on Trustpilot (as of July 2026) across 345 reviews from real customers who bought the product and carried it around the world.
• Over $1 million in crowdfunding — funded by people who believed in the product before it existed.
• Zero outside investors. Every decision made by the people whose names are on the label.
• Featured in Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, Forbes, and Business Insider — plus over 10 Travel + Leisure "best of" lists including best weekender bags, leather duffels, and luxury luggage.

For context (as of April 2026): Rimowa, backed by LVMH, sits at 4.0 stars. Tumi, a billion-dollar corporation, at 1.9. Away, with over $100 million in venture funding (source: Crunchbase), at 1.7. Wool & Oak, built by two people in a garage, leads them all. (See the full comparison in what makes a bag worth $500.)

That's not a coincidence. That's what happens when the people making the product are the same people standing behind it.

The Question We Keep Asking

Every product starts the same way. The same question Gizem asked on that train platform, the same question that still drives every design meeting, every material choice, every late night spent reworking something that was almost good enough but not quite:

There has to be a better way.

Wool & Oak is not just a luggage brand. It's a question. A challenge. A dare. A love story disguised as luggage — built by two travelers who got tired of bad bags and decided to make better ones.

And they're still making them. Still packing every order. Still answering every email. Still arguing about taupe.

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