Interview about Luma Backpack, winner of the A' Fashion and Travel Accessories Design Award 2025
Luma is a backpack made using a patented 3D knitting process that reduces material waste and simplifies production. Unlike traditional cut and sew methods, this approach produces fully shaped components directly from digital patterns with minimal waste and labor. The backpack is constructed from single strands of 100% pre-consumer recycled nylon, helping to lower energy use, emissions, and material waste. Luma's design is informed by nature and aims to offer a balance of function and sustainability through a streamlined minimalistic form.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsThe Luma Backpack represents a fundamental shift in how soft goods are designed and manufactured. By utilizing a patented 3D knitting process, we eliminate many of the inefficiencies, environmental costs, and structural limitations associated with traditional cut-and-sew backpack production.
The decision to embed sustainability into every stage of Luma Backpack’s development wasn’t just strategic, it was fundamental to the mission. We recognized early on that the outdoor gear industry often speaks to nature lovers while relying on processes that harm the very environment they’re designed for. That contradiction was the starting point. We simply asked, "What if performance gear didn’t have to come at the planet’s expense?"
The five-year development journey of the Luma Backpack was driven by relentless curiosity and a refusal to settle for conventional solutions. Over 20 distinct knit prototypes weren’t just about testing and aesthetics, they were a deep dive into the mechanics of performance, sustainability, and user experience, all woven into a single structure.
The seamless construction of the Luma Backpack isn’t just a visual or sustainable innovation, it’s a platform for embedding functional performance directly into the textile architecture. By leveraging advanced 3D knitting techniques, we’ve integrated features like low-stretch mesh zones and thermoforming yarns that meaningfully improve comfort, durability, and usability. One of the critical challenges in soft backpack design is maintaining shape under dynamic loads. Our custom low-stretch mesh structures are strategically knit into high-tension zones, like the main compartment and strap anchors. These zones resist deformation under weight, preventing the pack from sagging or shifting, improving weight distribution, posture support, and lessening fatigue during extended use.
The inspiration behind the Luma Backpack was born on the factory floors of China, where I witnessed mountains of textile waste cuttings, offcuts, and rejected parts piling up next to rows of workers operating in an outdated, extractive system. It was a stark realization: the way we manufacture today is broken, both environmentally and ethically.I didn’t just want to design a more sustainable product, I wanted to design a new manufacturing model. One that empowers localized, low-waste production and helps bring textile jobs and capabilities back to the U.S. Luma is that vision, brought to life.
The intersection of sustainability and durability is where real innovation happens. When we set out to create the Luma Backpack, our goal wasn’t just to reduce waste, it was to prove that a radically sustainable product could also outperform traditional gear in real-world conditions. But merging those two ideals, environmental responsibility and rugged durability, meant rethinking every assumption about materials, construction, and performance.
The distinctive look and feel of the Luma Backpack isn’t just a visual decision, it’s the direct result of our 3D knitting technology, which frees us from the rigid constraints of traditional cut-and-sew construction. This method enables a completely new approach to soft good design, where form, function, and visual identity are seamlessly integrated.In traditional backpack manufacturing, form is achieved by stitching together flat panels, which limits shape complexity and often requires bulky seams, reinforcements, and extra components. With 3D knitting, we’re able to shape the entire body as a continuous surface, curving naturally around the spine and shoulders without hard edges. This also gives us the ability to embed contours, recesses, and volume transitions directly into the fabric with no darts, folds, or glue needed.Perhaps most exciting is that Luma’s design is not just drawn, it’s coded. We design in 3D space using software that lets us control every stitch, every loop, every tension point. That level of control would be impossible in traditional manufacturing, where design is limited by the tools of sewing, cutting, and assembly. 3D knitting transforms the backpack from a product of assembly to a product of architecture. The result is an object that looks, feels, and performs like nothing else on the market, all while advancing a sustainable, zero-waste model of production.
Creating the Luma Backpack meant more than learning a new tool, it meant reprogramming how I thought about design altogether. Unlike traditional product development, where form follows fabrication, 3D knitting demanded that I design within the logic of the machine, working at the intersection of textiles, software, and spatial thinking. It challenged me to stop designing objects and start designing processes. It blurred the lines between digital and physical, craft and code. And in doing so, it enabled the creation of something truly new, a backpack that isn’t assembled, but grown.
The success of the Luma Backpack has proven that sustainability, technology, and high-end design don’t have to exist in separate lanes, they can and should be deeply integrated. More than just a backpack, Luma is a working prototype of what the next era of accessory manufacturing could look like. In short, Luma isn’t just influencing the future of bags, it’s influencing the future of how things are made.It challenges the industry to think smarter, waste less, and design from the ground up, with sustainability, intelligence, and beauty all woven together.
From the very beginning, the Luma Backpack wasn’t just about innovation for its own sake, it was about innovation that people can feel. We wanted to create a pack that disappears on the body, moves with you, and enhances comfort in ways that traditional backpacks simply can’t. That meant building ergonomics into the architecture, not adding it on after. In the end, every ergonomic feature of the Luma Backpack was designed with one goal: to feel like an extension of the user, not equipment strapped to them. By embedding comfort directly into the knit architecture, we eliminated bulk, reduced failure points, and created a pack that performs as beautifully as it looks.
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