Director of Design Innovation Una Murphy has spent her 25-year tenure at Levi Strauss & Co. pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in denim, leading to innovations in fabric, design, fit and wash. She’s spent recent years working at the intersection of design and material innovation, focused on how to do it all through the lens of sustainability.
It’s this long track record of innovation and continuous efforts to drive product integrity and sustainability through design that landed Una a spot in the 18th Aspen First Movers Fellows cohort.
Since 2009, Aspen Institute’s First Movers Fellowship has helped nearly 350 corporate social entrepreneurs lead change within their companies and industry. Bringing together professional innovators from around the globe to harness the power of business to improve society, this year’s program consists of leaders from various industries who are seeking to bring purpose into the work they do every day. Una is the latest of a long list of First Movers Fellows from LS&Co.
“This is a great honor,” Una said. “I am incredibly excited to work with a group of impressive professionals from other companies to pursue a project focused on ensuring that our values continue to show up in our garments. We’ve driven so much innovation in recent years, but there’s much more we can do, so I’m hoping that this program helps me better understand how to drive progress on this kind of work and to find more ways to extend the life cycle of our product for the benefit of our consumers and the benefit of the company.”
This kind of out-of-the-box, sustainable design thinking is not new to Una. She was a core member of the design team behind Levi’s® Wellthread® collection, a line that prioritized integrating sustainability at every stage of design and production. Wellthread® produced some of the company’s most circular garments to date and was the recipient of a Fast Company World Changing Idea award, in the consumer products category.
In 2021, Una was included in the Rivet 50, an annual list of apparel industry professionals redefining what can be done with denim.
“As designers, we need to make products that provide value and push our craft forward,” she reflected at the time. “We should all be asking ourselves if we can harness this moment of inflection to create positive change, support people’s safety and improve their ability to thrive. Can we leap-frog years of inertia and double down on the change that’s needed as an industry?”
Una was also the first Designer in Residence at AutoDesk’s renowned Pier 9 Innovation Workshop, where she pioneered a hybrid design practice that explored the intersection of digital fabrication and new materials in a craft heritage context. She began her design career working on the Levi’s® Vintage Clothing line, spending time in the LS&Co. Archives studying our earliest garments and heritage, and her tenure since includes stints on our Core and Concept design teams before finding her way to Design Innovation.
“Design is in many ways an exercise in thinking through what might be possible, and then trying to execute on that vision,” said Una. “It’s really a privilege to do this work and to have this opportunity with the Aspen Institute to learn more about how to carry it forward.”
