Long Island City, New York · Since 2016
Eleven people, two factories, one framed complaint letter.
We are not a lifestyle brand with a warehouse. We're a small studio that makes a short list of travel gear and argues about stitch density more than is healthy.
How it started
A split seam in Lisbon, 2016
Marcus was two days into a three-week work trip when the shoulder strap on his bag tore out of its seam on the escalator at Lisbon Oriente station. He carried it under one arm for the rest of the trip and taped it in a hostel bathroom.
The bag had cost $240. It lasted nine months. When he got home he emailed the manufacturer and got a form letter about wear and tear. That email is framed in our studio.
Wayfare started six months later in a rented room above a dry cleaner in Long Island City, with two people, a sample sewing machine and a spreadsheet of everything we thought the industry got wrong.
How we travel
One bag, packed the night before, no baggage claim
We are not trying to sell you a bag for every trip. We think most people need two: something that fits in the overhead bin, and something small enough to carry once you land.
That belief shapes everything. It's why our largest pack is 40 litres and not 65. It's why the carry-on is measured to the strictest cabin allowance we could find rather than the most generous one. It's why we spend money on the harness instead of on extra pockets.
Who's actually here
The two people who sign off every pattern
Marcus Adeyemi
Co-founder, product
Spent eleven years as a freight logistics planner, which is a polite way of saying he watched bags get destroyed for a living. Designs every harness on Wayfare gear and still carries the first Voyager prototype.
Dana Okonkwo
Co-founder, design
Trained in industrial design, previously built technical outerwear patterns. Responsible for the fact that our zippers open the direction your hand already wants to move.
Design principles
Four rules we've broken exactly twice
01
The bag opens the way your hands already move
No compartment should need a diagram. If a tester reaches for the wrong zipper twice, the layout is wrong and we redraw it.
02
Weight goes on your hips, not your neck
Anything over 25 litres gets a load-transferring belt. It's heavier on paper and far lighter on a long connection.
03
Repairable beats disposable
Every zipper, buckle and slider we use is a stock part we hold in inventory, so a broken piece is a replacement rather than a new bag.
04
No feature we can't defend
If we can't explain why a pocket exists in one sentence, it comes off the pattern before production.
How a bag gets made
From sketch to shipment takes about fourteen months
Most of that is testing. The sewing is the fast part.
Step 1
Pattern and first sample
Dana draws the pattern, our sample room in Da Nang sews one unit, and we live with it for two weeks before anyone else sees it.
Step 2
Field rotation, 90 days minimum
Eleven testers — cabin crew, two photographers, a nurse who commutes by bike, a father of three — carry the sample daily and log every complaint.
Step 3
Abrasion, load and rain
20,000 Martindale cycles on the shell, 40 kg static load on every strap anchor for 24 hours, and two hours under a spray rig before we sign off.
Step 4
Production sewing
Made in a 140-person factory we have used since 2018, audited annually, where the line lead has our phone number.
Materials
What's actually in the bag
- 900D recycled ballistic nylon
- Spun from post-consumer bottle flake, PU-coated on the reverse. Chosen because it scuffs and keeps going rather than tearing.
- YKK AquaGuard #8 and #10 zippers
- The most expensive line item on most of our patterns, and the part that fails first on cheap bags.
- Duraflex Rock Lockster hardware
- Glass-filled nylon buckles rated to –30 °C. They don't go brittle in a cargo hold.
- Full-grain vegetable-tanned leather
- On tags and pull loops only, from a tannery in León. It darkens with handling instead of flaking.
Inside the studio
Unstyled photos from the sample rail
Ten years in
The numbers, unrounded
41,800+
orders shipped since 2016
4.8 / 5
average across 9,412 reviews
1.9%
warranty claim rate
62
countries we've shipped to
We publish the warranty claim rate because it's the only durability number that can't be marketed. In 2019 it was 4.3% — a batch of buckles from a supplier we no longer use. We replaced every one.
SSL Secure Checkout
256-bit encrypted payments on every order.
Free 2–5 Day Shipping
On all U.S. orders over $75, shipped from Ohio.
365-Day Easy Returns
Unused gear returns free with a prepaid label.
Real Human Support
Talk to our New York team 6 days a week.
Questions before you buy?
Call +1 914 483 5602 or email vanguardeducationgroup@gmail.com. Someone on our team in New York answers — usually Priya, occasionally Marcus if it's about a harness.