The founder's why
The world's leading bra expert… hates bras.
So she invented their replacement. Laura Tempesta spent a career building better bras, then realized the bra itself was the problem. So she buried it.
The founders
Two women who refused to accept the bra.
Laura Tempesta spent a career leading bra innovation at Nike and intimates at lululemon before deciding the bra itself was the problem. To build the replacement, she partnered with Benita Ng, a 25-year veteran of lingerie production and textile engineering who developed the first moldable cotton-elastane fabric that transformed modern bra construction.
Together they moved overseas, overhauled outdated production processes, and built something that had simply never existed before.
Laura Tempesta & Benita Ng, Founders
TEDx · 3 million+ views
“You’ll never look at a bra the same way again.”
Laura Tempesta’s TEDx talk on why the bra is overdue for retirement.
Watch the talk →She built bras for the biggest names in the game.
As Head of Bra Innovation at Nike and Director of Bras & Intimates at lululemon, Laura spent years trying to make the bra better from the inside. Better materials, smarter construction, kinder fits. It was never enough.
“Better” bras are just faster horses.
Laura likes to say it the way Henry Ford might have: if you'd asked women what they wanted, they'd have said a more comfortable bra, a faster horse. The real answer wasn't a better bra at all. It was asking why support had to come from a separate garment in the first place. A change was overdue.
Storage unit. One-way ticket. Factory floor.
Working for the leading names in apparel, Laura learned the antiquated manufacturing process inside out, and knew a change had to be made. So she put her belongings into storage, moved overseas to work in factories every day, and rebuilt the solution from the manufacturing process up. Dozens of prototypes. Hundreds of wear testers and focus group participants. A new way to construct a garment. Patent-pending technology. The result is something that has simply never existed before.
"It feels like wearing nothing."
Leadership
Female founders with decades of leadership in lingerie and apparel innovation.
- World-leading expert in bra design and innovation
- Former Head of Bra Innovation, Nike
- Former Director of Bras & Intimates, lululemon
- Holds the only Master's degree in Lingerie Design in North America
- Inventor on 8 patents
- Featured expert in Vogue, NBC Today, Oprah, People, InStyle, and TEDx
- BA, Stanford University
- 25+ years in lingerie production & textile engineering
- Developed the first moldable cotton-elastane fabric, transforming modern bra construction
- Former Sourcing Director, Calvin Klein Underwear
- Senior Production roles at Hanesbrands, Victoria's Secret, Aritzia
- MBA, University of Technology Sydney
- BA Textile Technology, HK Polytechnic
Out in the wild
Events.
People don't believe it until they try it on, so we'll meet you where you are and come to your city. Pilates studios, college campuses, pop-ups. Here's where undun has been.
Campus tour · Panel
Inside the Startup Playbook: Innovation, Capital, and Career Paths
Hosted by Bruin Entrepreneurs and Girls Into VC at UCLA, a candid, behind-the-scenes conversation on what it actually takes to build companies, create breakthrough products, and break into startups and venture capital before graduation.
The unfiltered panel featured Laura Tempesta, Founder and CEO of undun (formerly at Nike and lululemon), alongside UCLA student-athlete Mia Jovic and Anh Nguyen, a leader in sales across media, entertainment, and CTV advertising. From turning ideas into patent-pending products, to how founders really get funded, to navigating ambition as a student, athlete, or first-time builder, the night went beyond buzzwords and into the real playbook. Attendees took home a patent pending undun T-shirt while supplies lasted.
Campus tour · Founder talk
Women in Business: Rethinking the Rules with Laura Tempesta
LMU's Women in Business hosted an evening with Laura Tempesta, founder of undun and the only person in North America with a master's degree in lingerie design, on turning niche technical expertise into a category-defining startup.
Laura traced her path from Stanford to product leadership at Nike and lululemon, and why she's now building undun to reinvent how women experience clothing. Dean Smith opened the evening. Before the talk, the team ran a campus pop-up getting shirts to students — the first of many campus launches, with plenty more to come.
Campuses · studios · pop-ups
Want undun at your event?
We're booking activations, campus launches, and studio takeovers. If your community is ready to ditch the bra, we'll bring the shirts (and the orange totes).