In 2019, it’s common for Millennials to have more than one job. Twenty-two year old Meaghan Glenn is no exception. The recent college graduate works full-time at Welborn Events in the wedding and corporate event division and has a design company side hustle — Death by Design.
“The business actually started after I painted jean jackets as Christmas gifts for my two younger sisters,” she said. “I had seen photos of some painted jackets online and thought they were so different. After I gave them their jackets, my sister kind of ran with the business idea and made an Instagram page and started showing her friends.”
Glenn said her first orders were from her sister’s sorority members. After that, she said her side gig started to gain traction with people in the community and more orders started coming in.
Death by Design didn’t start out as a job for Glenn. Her degree from the University of Kentucky was in hospitality management and tourism and she was painting jackets just for fun.
“It definitely started as a creative outlet,” she said. “But the extra spending money has been great. Just getting out of college and starting to learn how to budget and control my expenses has been harder than I thought.”
So far, Glenn has designed and painted approximately 25 jackets and plans on selling her first pair of painted jeans at her first pop-up shop on April 20 from 1-4 p.m. at Studio Slant.
“Death By Design is mostly the denim products like jackets and jeans, but I’ve done a few denim puppy bandanas,” she said. “I also sell custom dog portraits and other paintings on the Instagram page (@_deathbydesign_) as well.”
Glenn’s sales have only been online so far, but she said she is excited to reach more people at the pop-up shop.
“To actually display the jackets and jeans and let people come in and see them and try them on will be a cool experience,” she said.
