House of Murphy debuts fun clothing, home goods full of bold color, and playful prints
When fashion designer Jessica Murphy Walsh bought a house, she discovered that a passion for interior design accompanied her love of fashion.
“One of the biggest places you can express yourself is in your own home,” she says, noting that even includes your domestic attire. “Wearing fun pajamas—that’s something no one can judge you on. They’re a way of showing your individuality.”
Fueled by a desire to create clothing and home decor that empowers self-expression and elevates spaces, Walsh founded House of Murphy. The newly launched lifestyle brand’s pajamas and loungewear, bags and accessories, lampshades, pillows, and blankets feature colorful, dynamic prints, each an original design created by Walsh.
“I wanted a modern aesthetic, and I just kind of created my own worlds,” she says of the jungle scenes, intricate interwoven florals, and embroidered imagery covering the pieces, which are available on House of Murphy’s website and at Wolf & Badger, an online marketplace for independent brands.
She found inspiration in her favorite color combinations and the patterns by nineteenth-century English textile designer William Morris. The horses she competitively rode as a child sparked her use of equestrian imagery.
House of Murphy Foundation
Walsh’s love of fashion started in high school, when she styled her looks with colorful printed bottoms. “I liked the way that the prints made me feel; they were a way of expressing myself,” she says.
After graduating from Central Saint Martins, the world-renowned arts and design college at the University of the Arts London, Walsh moved to Los Angeles. There, she created a collection of avant-garde garments made with latex and adorned with prints she’d designed.
“It’s a really labor-intensive process, to pattern-cut and sew the latex,” she says of that attention-grabbing collection.
When Walsh developed a chronic illness—which brought her back to Greenville to be closer to family—she was determined to continue designing. “I knew I still wanted to do my artwork, and wanted to find a way that was more accessible to people and that was easier on my body,” she says. “I shifted my focus and thought about what I enjoyed most about making that [collection]. It was making the prints behind the latex.”
With wearability in mind, Walsh created House of Murphy’s clothing in a range of sizes. The pajamas are made with bamboo viscose (it’s better at wicking moisture than cotton) and have heat-pressed labels instead of itchy stitching. Varied pricing is meant to make the pieces accessible. “I wanted to provide lots of different options for people,” she says.
An innovator
“I really admire what Abigail Glaum-Lathbury is doing with her work. She’s an extremely talented pattern maker and she’s always thinking outside of the box. She really pushes against the system of what we think fashion is and how we consume it. It’s inspiring to see someone challenge the status quo the way she has on normalized toxic fashion ideals—she makes the viewer think, and I love that. She rethinks how things should be in fashion. She imagines boldly, takes risks, breaks conventions, and creates unique and unpredictable garments because of it. I had the great experience of being one of her students before I transferred to Central Saint Martins. It was an honor of a lifetime to learn from her.”
Forward-Thinking Fashion
Walsh isn’t just a fashion designer. She’s also an inventor.
She developed and patented a special sewing process for natural rubber latex, an idea that first came to her when creating her final collection at Central Saint Martins. “I was trying to create a story by layering the latex with other fabrics and needed to utilize stitching on the material to tell that story,” she says of the method. It was awarded a US patent in June 2025, more than two years after submitting the application for it.
Conventionally, latex pieces were glued together to create garments and accessories by those in the fashion industry. Those glues can have toxic effects on anyone using them, Walsh says.
“My method is innovative because you can have decorative stitching in the latex like top stitching, quilting, and gathering of the materials,” she adds.
To learn more about House of Murphy, visit houseofmurphy.net or follow @thehouseofmurphy. Browse items sold through Wolf & Badger at wolfandbadger.com/us/designers/house-of-murphy.
