Momu
“I wanted something alliterative, two little syllables that rhyme, and I loved the sound of MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art). So, I tried ‘Mo’ and then ‘Mu,’ and it just clicked. It does not mean anything; it is playful and abstract, and it fits the store,” explained Rebecca Yund, owner of Momu, a clothing, accessories, and home goods store in Salt Lake City.
Rebecca grew up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a water-loving kid who felt most at home near the ocean. In high school, she attended a magnet program for theater, threw herself into performance, and ever curious and fearless, followed a favorite band up and down the East Coast from Virginia to Atlanta. A tour stop in Boone, North Carolina planted a seed. She chose the mountains for college, enrolling at Appalachian State University. After completing her undergraduate degree, she stayed in Boone from 2000 to 2009, first in admissions and then in financial aid, and earned a master’s in higher education administration - practical work for a practical mind that also loved crafting, making art, and being, as she says, “creative and silly.”
In 2009, Rebecca did the bravest thing on her list; she moved to Hawaii, sight unseen, to run the financial aid office at the community college on Kauai. Good at financial aid but hungry to change lives more directly, she helped build a college-access program there - an initiative first launched with support from a tech billionaire and later bolstered by other donors - that invited people who had never imagined college to try it with low stakes and real support. The program focused on Native Hawaiian students and others far from higher education: people in shelters, people home from prison, adults no one had ever encouraged. The promise was simple and radical; take a class in anything, come back for the next term, and, if desired, receive help all the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Hawaii shaped Rebecca's life in every way. She met and married Adam in 2013. Their daughter, Elenora, arrived in 2014. When Adam describes the years that followed, what stands out is endurance and care. He taught special education, later transitioned to teaching art, and kept making work of his own. Rebecca advanced the access program, then adjusted her role to be with Eleanora more. By late 2016, Rebecca and Adam felt the geography of family tugging at them from the mainland. A road trip through Utah surprised them both; for the first time, returning to Kauai did not feel unequivocally like coming home. They decided to try Salt Lake City and moved in 2017. The birth of their son, Charles, followed in 2020.
Before opening her shop, Rebecca kept helping people find first steps - GEAR UP and career-technical programs, then a role guiding low- to moderate-income residents toward first-time homeownership. The housing reality weighed on her. In 2024, she went to therapy, told her therapist she needed a different kind of work, and heard the question that changed everything: If you could do anything, what would you do? “I would open a boutique.” So, she tested the dream. The Women’s Business Center of Utah became her classroom. She researched revenue benchmarks in library databases, drafted and redrafted a business plan with an advisor’s notes in the margins, measured square footage in comparable stores to calm her anxiety with data, secured a lender, and looked for light - literally. Floor-to-ceiling windows were non-negotiable. When she stepped into the brick-walled space that would become Momu, she knew.
The build-out reflects her joy-first philosophy. The ceiling is chartreuse. Dressing-room drapes in raspberry-grape velvet were sewn by local seamstresses using fabric from a nearby family shop. Window displays are pure theater: a jelly-bean-encrusted chair, a giant popsicle Adam fabricated in the couple’s garage welding studio, and papered moments that feel like a teleport to somewhere not-Salt-Lake for a minute. The neighbors in this delightful strip of shops form an accidental sisterhood - sign painters, a women-led tattoo studio, a donut and coffee shop, a nail salon, and an architecture-and-design book and supply shop opened by a former University of Utah professor - housed together in the historic Film Exchange Building in Central City.
Inside, Momu is color, movement, and invitation. Rebecca curates small-batch clothing and objects that are “interesting, fun, and well made.” Alter House Line, from Portland, cuts patterns around deadstock fabrics - beautiful material rescued from the landfill and reimagined as limited runs. LAU, a Rome-based designer, collaborates with artists to create prismatic prints, then produces garments with family-run factories. Some pieces are unisex. Shelves are dotted with puzzles, playful craft kits, greeting cards by independent illustrators, table linens that brighten a weeknight dinner, candles, and papers that make gift-wrapping feel like a ceremony. She offers complimentary wrapping because, as she puts it, a thoughtful wrap “elevates the gift” and spreads a little extra delight.
Momu also bears Adam’s hand. He teaches art at Wasatch Junior High and contributes to the shop’s installations and artwork, the kind of behind-the-scenes making that turns a boutique into an experience.
When Rebecca talks about style, she is really talking about courage and happiness: do not be intimidated; if you wear only black, wonderful then start with a bold earring or a bright table runner. Let color spark creativity. Let play invite joy.
The path from Myrtle Beach to Boone to Kauai to Salt Lake reveals the through-line in Rebecca’s life: help people step into a larger version of themselves. As a university professional, that meant removing the fear around forms and funding. As a program builder, it meant lowering the barriers for first-generation students to test college and keep going. As a shopkeeper, it means staging moments through windows, fabrics, and objects that nudge a person toward expression and delight. She managed a dear friend’s boutique on Kauai before leaving the islands, learning that she loved telling makers’ stories, teaching customers how pieces are made, and constructing whimsical displays that stopped passersby in their tracks. Years later, all those instincts are the bones of Momu.
Ask her what she wants people to understand and Rebecca circles back to feeling: “I want people to feel joy - in their own expression, in the way a bright thing or a tiny craft opens up the creative part of the brain, in the surprise of seeing something wild and different. Even if you walk by, see the window, and think, ‘this is not for me,’ I hope it gives you a moment of happiness. That is what Momu is about. Joy looks good on you.”
