When people think about influencer brands, they often think about audience, content and aesthetics first. What they do not always see is the level of commercial thinking, market insight and product focus that can sit behind a successful personal brand.
A few years ago, Natasha Ocean Lee approached Mouse with an idea for a premium gym bag. She had found us through the website while researching design consultancies with experience in outdoor, sports and soft goods products. From the start, it was clear this was not a vague product idea or a trend-led side project. Natasha and her partner Mario came to the first meeting with a huge amount of research, a very clear view of the target customer and even a rough prototype she had sewn at home from old curtain fabric to communicate the size and feel she had in mind.
That first meeting told us a lot.
Firstly, Natasha understood her audience exceptionally well. Through her network and influence, she had gathered feedback from more than 300 people in the exact demographic she wanted to design for. That level of market insight is unusual, even in established businesses. It meant the brief was highly focused from day one. We were not guessing who the customer was, what they cared about or how the product would fit into their lifestyle. We knew.
Secondly, it showed the difference between working with a personal brand and working with a conventional company. Natasha was not designing a product to sit alongside her brand. In many ways, the product was an extension of her brand. That changes the design process. Every detail matters more. Every decision has to feel right not just commercially or functionally, but emotionally and aesthetically too.
That is where Mouse came in.
Our role was to take the research, conversations, spreadsheets, sketches and rough prototype and translate all of that into a resolved product that could actually be manufactured. That process started, as many soft goods projects do, with sketch work. This is always one of the most enjoyable parts of a project. At that stage, there is room to explore, challenge assumptions and test different ways of solving the brief quickly and cost-effectively.
From there, the project moved into more detailed development. Natasha knew exactly what the bag needed to carry, so we were able to work in a very targeted way. We could model the space required for a laptop, tablet, shoes, gym kit, accessories and the other essentials her customer needed to move between work and training. What started as a loose concept became a highly specified product architecture.
That transition from idea to structure is one of the most important parts of designing soft goods well.
Unlike many hard products, where CAD can define nearly every interaction before prototyping begins, soft goods rely heavily on the translation between two-dimensional drawings, three-dimensional form, material behaviour and factory interpretation. A bag can look resolved on screen and still need a great deal of refinement once it becomes physical. That is why experience in factory development matters so much.
On this project, the first factory prototype was a major turning point. It was not right in terms of materials or colour, but it was the first time the full concept had come together in a single product. Importantly, the overall bag architecture held up very well. The media pockets, laptop storage, main compartment structure and specialist internal organisation remained largely consistent throughout development. The refinement stage was about making those ideas work better and feel more seamless.
That is often where the real value of product design sits.
In this case, the hardest challenge was balancing functionality with a sleek, minimal aesthetic. Natasha did not want a typical sports bag. She wanted something that felt closer to a fashion-led accessory, but still performed like a highly capable gym bag. That tension between fashion and function shaped almost every design decision, from zipper selection and trim to internal organisation and how hidden features were resolved.
A good example was the shoe compartment. Functionally, it needed to be there. But when not in use, it could not disrupt the clean internal feel of the bag. The answer was to develop a compact internal stow solution so it packed away neatly when unused. Those sorts of details rarely define a product in a single headline, but they often define whether a product feels considered or clumsy in real life.
This is also where factory relationships become critical. One of the biggest misconceptions in product development is that once a tech pack is complete, the hard work is over. In reality, that is often the point where a different kind of work begins. Getting a soft goods product to production standard can take months of communication, testing, refinement and supplier collaboration. That process is one of Mouse’s strengths, and it is something many clients underestimate at the start.
The project eventually reached final production sample stage and was ready to move into manufacture. In parallel, Natasha had also been developing digital training guides for her audience. Commercially, those proved to be a better fit for the direction of the business at that time. So while the bag did not launch, the project still tells an important story: not just about the product, but about the value of a clear brief, strong market insight and a development partner who can carry an idea all the way through to production readiness.
For us, it also reinforced something we believe strongly at Mouse. We do not just want to hand over concepts and disappear. We want to become part of the journey, understand what matters to the people behind the brand and help turn ambition into something commercially real.
If you are developing a bag, soft goods product or founder-led brand extension and want help taking it from early idea through to factory-ready design, get in touch with Mouse.
