Latest / Skin Anarchy / Engineering Bras For Comfort & Confidence Ft. Evelyn & Bobbie

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Engineering Bras For Comfort & Confidence Ft. Evelyn & Bobbie · Skin Anarchy

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, welcome back to Anarchy.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is a very special episode because we're going to be diving into the world of fashion today.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it's very exciting when we get to have fashion brands on because you know we live in the world of fast fashion right now where I feel like everybody is just buying something and then throwing it away the next day.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not so much anymore about these tried and true um articles that we have in our collection.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's more so about like, well, what can I get for like five bucks?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Which I absolutely just don't like that mentality.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: So whenever I get a chance to interview a brand that I really believe in that's doing something wonderful in the realm of fashion, I get very excited.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: So without further ado, please welcome uh Bri McKean, who is the visionary founder of Evelyn and Bobby.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Bri.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to host you.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy to be here.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I'm excited to chat with you and and learn all about what led to the creation of Evelyn and Bobby.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love your brand.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you could kind of walk us down memory lane, you know, tell us about your background and the spark that led to the creation of your brand.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, my journey is not a uh straight line into fashion.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because, you know, um people ask me how long I've been in fashion, and um, and I say, Well, I'm still not, I'm in engineering.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think about what I do as making making gear for real women in our real lives, um, because that's really where my journey began.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I was working in finance.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had a um a really unique opportunity to work for boutique venture firm, and my job was to do diligence and evaluate uh early stage consumer healthcare companies, actually.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my undergrad was in medical anthropology, and I've always been really interested in health and culture, the intersection of health and culture.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I had what for many people would be a dream job, but I'm also a 34G.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've always had a lot of heavy breast tissue, you know, since uh a very early age.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I found myself working long days in finance, and I honestly just wanted to rest the weight of my best on the desk by 2 p.m.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I always took my bra off in the car on the way home.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, here I am looking kind of at the forefront of innovation, and I can't find a damn comfortable bra.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was ridiculous.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the beginning.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I really came into this as an outsider.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, what a great, you know, mission to have because I tell you right now, you know, not to not TMI, but I, you know, I have double D's and it's very difficult, you know, to have like the weight and the back pain and the, you know, that's a whole thing.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think people ever, you know, realize that.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I see a lot of uh young women nowadays.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think for a long time it's been like this.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants to go get breast implants, but it's like, you know, when you when you have to deal with it as an actual like medical hurdle through your day, you know what I mean?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a whole different story, you know, on that on the flip side of things.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I I feel your pain, literally.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Literally feel my pain.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the that that was part of this aha moment because you know, I was having posture issues, tension headaches, all these issues.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and Dr.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Ecte, you're not alone.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: The average bra size in this country is a 34F.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're an E.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: A 34F.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is a substantial load that women are carrying around.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I, in the beginning, I was worried that it was my posture.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was sitting in a chair looking at a computer too much.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've just got to build my core strength.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I started working with this physiologist, and I was standing in his office one day, and this was like one of the big moments that impacted me.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was standing in his office.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Brie, you're this is after six months of doing bar method, like really four to five times a week.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I made a concerted effort to improve my core strength.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I even considered a breast reduction, which I bet has crossed your mind, given, you know, thinking about carrying that load, doing surgery, all the things that you do in your career.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I was standing there, he said, your posture looks great.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of blurted out, I said, I've got these two pressure points when I stand up straight, right where my underwire digs into my ribs.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he explained to me that that's called a neuromuscular feedback loop.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like when you get a, and you probably can explain this better than I can, but it's it's when you get a pebble in your shoe, you don't have to tell your foot to curl around the pain.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: It just does within a step or two.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I realized, he said, go down to the mall, get a bra that feels great when you stand up straight.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, that bra didn't exist.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've been looking for it for decades.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of had this lightning strike.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, hold on.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: All of these powerful women walking into boardrooms, into the surgery room, into the classroom, all of these women average 34F in this country, and we're all wearing something that's actually hurting our posture and making us curl like this what's going on?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get here?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I really looked into the design of the bra and I saw that the underwire and the conventional bra design was patented in 1931, and it hadn't been updated.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy, yeah.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know what's what's the most, you know, I think the saddest part about this is that I remember going into like a Victoria's Secret, right?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like in my early 20s, and you know, I was in the best shape of my life.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was uh an athlete, I was doing great, but I mean you can't breasts don't go away for anyone listening, by the way.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know there's like a myth out there that when you lose weight and you're in you're in shape, they don't just go away.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know it's fat, fatty tissue, but that's still there, you know.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you could be in the best shape of your life and you still have this problem, you know?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like when you're going into Victoria's Secret, they're going to show you sizes that are like, I don't know, they mark them as like D and it's like a B or something crazy.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was having such issues finding my right size, and I was almost feeling like, am I crazy?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like am I just like, am I bigger than what I realize?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Or like, you know what I mean?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like I something's wrong, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like it didn't feel normal to me.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like the I think this is like the classic story when it comes to fashion, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Where it's like you feel like you're a large, but then you end up buying an extra large or whatever.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like that's what was happening in the bra world, especially in the bra world, you know?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so it made you feel like I know it's great for women who don't have to really worry about, like, you know, you really need to find the right size, or like especially cup size and stuff.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: But for women who don't, like, we don't need a boost, we just need something that's gonna work.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's a nightmare trying to navigate that, you know, because everything's got padding in it, everything's got boosting in it, everything's got the underwire that just like it doesn't help.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a lot.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I hear you, you know, it's I'm like over here seriously scribbling down quotes of what you just said because I don't think you could have more perfectly encapsulated the experience that we're all having.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that and this was what blew my mind.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, millions of us are having this experience quietly in dressing rooms.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: You said, is this normal?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, something must be wrong.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: What's my right size?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So this feeling that there must be something wrong with my body, that my size must be uniquely like this is what the industry created.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: The structures, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, this is what that was my experience.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you just said, literally walking into the Victoria's Secret, getting measured, and all of a sudden you've got, you know, this measurement, which by the way, you might get measured by two different girls and they'll tell you two different sizes.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: The chaos of the sizing.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and this this feeling that because the garment doesn't fit, perhaps there's something wrong with our bodies.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was the thing I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's let's really dig into that, right?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because the idea, first of all, a lot of people don't realize.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna give you a quick couple of bullet points on the history of the bra.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go grab one of those underwire bras from your drawer, snip the underwire casement, and pull it out.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It will sit flat on the table.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Show me a place on your body that is flat like that, right?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we're taking this piece of metal that does not conform to the natural anatomy and physiology.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're pairing it with these narrow straps that sit in an ergonomically incorrect place, usually on the trapezius muscle.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you see people with these deep indentations.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then you take tissue, you take delicate endocrine tissue that is expanding and contracting based on the natural cycles, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Up to 25% of fluctuation in the volume of the bus.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: You have one in five women that have a full cup size between the breasts.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we have these very ever-changing bodies that we're trying to stuff into a size that is has a little band and cup size on the tag.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and by the way, there's no standardization.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you think this is your size, and you go into Victoria's Secret, and the bra that you're putting on with that label maybe, and I've done the work up to two inches different from another brand.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we think that this is an us problem, but it's not.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way that this garment has been designed for so long.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the whole I get so passionate about this, I can't.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know I love it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you're the first person in my life that is explaining this the way it needs to be explained.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Please keep going.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it turns out our bodies work differently than the design of the bra.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, for me, the holy grail of bras, which was truly unattainable for decades, the the bar was pretty low.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to look good under my clothes.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to not hurt at the end of the day.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, really?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was the criteria.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, you know, my whole life, my boobs were a problem.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were a problem for me.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: They were a problem.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like, you know, I'm stuffed into these bras where they're I've got bubbling under my shirt.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like these, you know, the boobs, my boobs walk into the room before me.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: The muffin tops, the muffin tops, like the yeah, it's crazy.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or you get the white the wire-free bras.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't true for my wire-free bras because we we took on the challenge of replacing the underwire with something better.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, a conventional underwire bra is great for comfort, but you can't wear it into the boardroom.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can't wear it in a professional setting.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: You get one big boob that kind of sits in the middle, it's not flattering.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I will tell you that this morning, so I'm wearing the Evelyn Mesh, the Evelyn and Bobby Evelyn Mesh.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: This morning, I opened my bra drawer.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have, I, I uh, I know a lady in the bra business, so I have a lot of them, but I had like I have 40 bras in my drawer.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of those bras moves with my body throughout the day.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of them is perfectly smoothing under my clothes.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of them, I gain and lose five pounds up and down throughout the month.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, that's just how my body is.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's more than that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: My bra still fits, no matter what's going on, because the bra adapts to my body.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's got these built-in structures that are very soft.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: They don't feel like hard parts like conventional bras, but there's these built-in layered structures that together with four-way stretch that creates like a true second skin.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think about my bra anymore.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have anything working against my posture.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that was for so long, and I think still today for so many women, impossible.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's why I was like, okay, this has to change.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to throw out all the old ideas of how a bra should be made, start from scratch.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been a long journey, but that's what we did.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to tell you it is possible to have a bra that looks great under your clothes and is truly comfortable all day long.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is so brilliant because honestly, there's so many things I want to talk about.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that at some point, and I want to talk about this honestly because skin anarchy, you know, I decided to change our focus from just skincare because of this exact reason.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that is because we don't get to talk about how much body dysmorphia we have created in this world because of shitty products.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody wants to talk about that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm getting sick of it, you know, because when it comes to we're talking about bras and we're talking about, you know, a real problem women face every single day.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, we've had to wait this long for, you know, like founders like you to come along and be like, enough, enough, enough of the BS, I'm not doing this anymore.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And before that happened, though, we went through, we've gone through this whole thing, and you know, medicine calls it body dysmorphia because eventually, especially at a young age, if you get exposed to, and I'm no shade to Victoria's Seeker, by the way.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is to all of the retail stores out there that are doing it wrong.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But if you expose a young woman, right, at an early stage to this kind of a scenario where she is not finding her fit, she's in shape, she's an athlete, whatever, you know, she's she's good everywhere.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not obesity, right, at all involved.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that she has certain needs when it comes to her breast size.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you expose her to an environment, a retail store that cannot cater to her, no matter what.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Even if they find her the right quote unquote size, the strap is gonna dig into her back.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna look ridiculous.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna look like, you know, like you belong in a Playboy shoot rather than, you know, I just need something that's good for me.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: My clothing, right?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: My real life.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna create this feeling in that young woman that is like, I feel like something in me and my body is just not, you know, I'm never gonna fit into certain groups and people aren't going to take me seriously or whatever.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: All those thoughts that go through to your head, and it's all induced by somebody else.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's not because you don't like your own body.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, on one side, we're telling women a healthy breast size is the standard of beauty.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And on the other side, we're creating products that are literally going, they're contradictory and oxymoronic to that same principle that's been rooted in our biology since the beginning of time, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Truly rooted in our biology.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's insane to me.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's it, that's literally insanity.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I see these women every day, young women, I I worry for them because I'm like, you have honestly the beginning stages of body dysmorphia because they're all trying to cover it up.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: The sports bra thing you were talking about, we all did that, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like we were wearing sports.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: I remember wearing a sports bra under my uh, what do you call it?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like my business attire.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And feeling like, you know what I mean?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, well, this is the only thing that's not gonna make me look ridiculous, you know.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't want to look like I'm going on a date.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want to look professional, you know?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's not it, that's just not it.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's just it can't be it.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: That can't be our approach.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what you're doing, it goes so far beyond like apparel and fashion.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's really about this like need that we have as women, you know, to to have products that are meant for us, they're designed for us, they're they're thought about, you know, in a way that like it's easing our lives, you know.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's my point.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know I randomed a lot there, but oh my god, I just every every single point that you made is so aligned with our philosophy.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have up on the wall in our headquarters uh this little mini manifesto written up on the wall.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, it turns out your body's perfect.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's bras that are the problem.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're bringing the bra into this century, no underwires, no body shaming, no bullshit.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's literally what it says on the wall.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, I think the thing that we've done that is different is we've simply been empirical, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at the body demographics of the population that we're serving.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things that was so mind-blowing to me, Dr.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Ekta, was um when I first started, and this has slowly changed, but very little.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, most of the major retailers, the biggest size that they would have is a 38 triple D.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many women that come into my office that think they're a 38 triple D because that's what they were sold, but they're actually, you know, a 34i, or, you know, all these, um, our bodies are the same, but they're all so unique.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think we have been reflecting ourselves in the products that are available to us.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we at Evelyn and Bobby have 270 fit models.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was, it blew my mind.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Most bra companies are designing, if they make a new bra style, they're designing on one to three professional fit models, which are not even real bodies.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're real bodies, of course.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're real people.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just mean they're they are professionals who are paid to maintain a static weight, which is also not typical for people.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we have 270 real non-professional fit models that are coming into our offices on a daily basis because we are making changes to each size.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, there's only seven.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's extra small through 3XL.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like our sizing is so simple because I don't want you to have to be stressed out about what your bra size is.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're just a medium.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if you gain five pounds or lose five pounds, guess what?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're still a medium.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: The the garment expands and contracts to fit you, given your your volume on any given day.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I mean, I think that it is possible to be empirical, to be scientific about product design.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are what is the population I'm serving?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is the job that this garment is doing?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then how do we actually design it with that in mind?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am designing a, we're on the final stages of a busty bra right now, which I'm really excited about.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the busty bra is specifically designed for people that have a really um high ratio.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll have like a tiny rib cage and really full volume.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that product has it's on its second wear test.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's going into a two-week wear test with every single size being tested on three different people.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's so rigorous what we do.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're texting with every single tester every day to get specific areas of drill down.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we really obsess over the design because it's not about how it looks, it's how it performs.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you're putting that much thought into it because honestly, another thing about like, you know, just breast morphology is that there are so many changes that happen in the female body.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know right now the world is buzzing about menopause, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I am all about it.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: I am here for it.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I just think that one of the things that we don't, you know, we're not really talking about much is that there needs to be a shift also in fashion.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there needs to be a shift that happens on this level of fashion where you're now designing products that are maybe meant for women who've had you know massectomies or like, you know, maybe not a, you know, not a bilateral one, maybe it's only one side, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's there are special cases for everything.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, you know, you have to understand that the female body, it will change.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to laxity of, you know, the ligaments and you know the volume of the actual breast itself and what that means for the overlying skin changes that happen, bras are simply not designed to complement those changes.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times that lumpy look that you get is just because you're naturally aging, you know, you're losing certain volume, you're your body's shifting and your your products that you use, like the apparel that you use to, you know, kind of enhance those features, it has to be flexible enough, right?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Both, you know, you know, if actually like physical, literally, but also figuratively because and and compliment you.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you shouldn't have to fight that battle on top of the battles you're already fighting, you know, in your daily life.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's where this really for me hits home because it it impacts women, you know, that are not necessarily like, okay, I'm in my 20s, I have perfect perk, perky breasts.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I could wear a towel to work and I'll look great.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of thing.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's it's very, very um innovative and it's very well thought out what you've created here because it's it's just been so needed, you know, for so long.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to throw this in there that there isn't a better post-surgical bra than Evelyn and Bobby.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I work with my medical advisor who is an aesthetic breast surgeon out of New York.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: She does a lot of breast reductions, a lot of um other sort of uh, you know, she does augmentations and and a number of corrective surgeries.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she gives every single one of her patients an Evelyn and Bobby bra after they're out of their, you know, the immediate post-surgical garment.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's nothing in my bras to irritate scars.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing to restrict swelling, lymphedema, the natural healing process.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you can even put up to a size seven prosthesis right in the cup.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a little pocket because we have optional modesty pads.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need the pads.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I take mine out because I'm Like free the nipple.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I got nipples.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And but a lot of people like that modesty, you know, if you're in a professional environment.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you can put a prosthes right in there.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you have one natural breast and one reconstructed breast, it does amazing things for re-um aligning symmetry.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I am, I will tell you the best part of my day.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have a customer voice Slack channel.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not kidding, I cry once a week because I, I mean, I thought that making a better bra was going to be valuable, right?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, we can we can reflect women in our real women in our advertising, like we can, we can do some really positive things with the bra company.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was not prepared for these letters that we get from customers who, you know, one of them, Michelle, who has gone through three emergency heart surgeries.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: These are the only bras that she can wear.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got um, we had this love letter that came from a woman who had had a series of falls and um, you know, had been going through a bunch, and she was just reaching out talking about how how valuable these comfortable garments were for her.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are the things that um really touch my heart, honestly, you know, because I think that we don't realize uh there's a lot of our identity and a lot of um a lot of of pain and discomfort that's kind of accumulated around the topic of breast and bras.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when you find something that gives you just easy relief, it's it can be really impactful.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I think that this is a very, very like, you know, multifaceted kind of uh conversation because it impacts everybody.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think also, you know, one of the big things, I'm glad you have the the uh, you know, you can remove the modesty pads.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, if you can have if I don't know if you have this or not, where you can like maybe if you want to add in more padding, you could do that.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that available for people?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like where if they want to add in more cops or something, they can.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, if you have, if you have something like some people who've had lumbectomy have these little, like um, we call them cutlets, these little cutlets, but yes, you can put those right in the cup.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I had one woman who um would take that she had a little bit of asymmetry because of a lumbectomy, and she took the pad out of the left side and doubled up the pads on the right to make everything look just right.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yes, there they're, I mean, the thing we call it the magical moldable bra because it just flexes with your body.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when you get it, we have for those of you that decide you want to try this, we have this little phrase, too tight, probably just right.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we I when I quit my job in the Bay Area and I moved to Portland because I was like, hey, we're making gear.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I partnered with the most advanced performance athletic apparel manufacturers in the world.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: So think of all the big athletic apparel giants.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's who I share my supply chain with.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we took, it took me like 18 months to develop the two fabrics that we use in all of our bras because I wanted something that was going to be really powerful, uh, but also incredibly buttery soft and feels like a second skin, not something that's dry and thick and um, you know, feels like a sports bra.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that is actually very difficult to do.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: The the yarn that goes into our bras is is almost a hundredth of a human hair.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like spider webs.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's so fine.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it what it that does is it creates this really powerful four-way stretch that's incredibly adaptive.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you get the bra, follow the size chart.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: It should be snug when you first get it.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, step into them.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's something people aren't used to.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: You slide it up over your hips, catch that lift on the way up, and wear it for three days.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you truly have a custom bra in three days.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: It will use the heat and sustain pressure from your body to stretch only where it's needed.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really, it's really amazing.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes people are like, oh man, this is this is a powerful bra.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then on day three, they forget they're wearing it.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's really cool.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that that's the I asked you also because I think a lot of women out there, young women, um, like I said, I worry about them, right?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's fine.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like you guys want to go get breast surgery and you want to get implants.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's your body, you know, you do what you want.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, if you're somebody who's just doing it because you think, yeah, you know, this is gonna help me out in my dating life or my, you know, whatever it might be for you, my business life, whatever, you know, the impression that you're trying to create, maybe start somewhere like this where you can have like interchangeable, you know, sizing that you can do with like, you know, inserting, like, like you said, the cutlets or like and just have options for yourself, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Before you go and get an invasive procedure done that you might not know what's going to happen.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of times these surgeries are not done by the best people.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not trying to hate on anybody again, but being in medicine myself, I've seen a lot of you know, whack, wacko surgeons out there that are charging next to nothing and they're giving everybody a, you know, a size F.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, you know, just be careful because when you're young and when you're in your 20s or younger, you don't know, right?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know about what looks natural, what doesn't look natural.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times people opt in for procedures that are not meant for them.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you create options through apparel and you create options that can help you figure out, you know, what is actually gonna look good on me, I think that's just gonna help make, you know, help people make more informed decisions.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it also plays in in that angle, you know, from that angle of like helping customers and and everyday people figure out, like women figure out like this is what my body should look like, you know, according to my normal proportions.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is what I'm supposed to look like.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's huge.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it goes on the other side too.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's uh been a significant increase in breast reductions.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, Dr.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Naidu, my medical advisor, um, actually has on her website if you're considering a breast a breast reduction, but you're not quite there yet, try the DeFi bra.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's our most ergonomic bra.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the best if you have any kind of bra pain.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the one that I I wear almost every day.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, but yeah, I mean, surgery is not small.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: There is risk of complication, there are risks anytime we cut the body open.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I I love the idea of a non-surgical first stop to see if you can find a solution there.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can, that's terrific.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And also, I think um one thing I want to bring up from the more scientific medical side is, and it's very important because I spent a I spent a good actually chunk of my career doing breast cancer research.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um what I realized very quickly when I dove into breast cancer was that calcium and calcium plays a big role in breast cancer.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, one thing that we can take away from that is this understanding that the breast tissue itself is very easy to induce traumatic changes to.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: So even if you have something like where you're playing contact sports and say like a soccer ball hits you at like X speed, right?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: In the breast area, there's a high possibility that that is going to induce some sort of um, you know, tissue level changes um in your breasts.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And this can actually become pre-con like pre-cancerous, like later down in your life.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And people don't really understand, you know, patients don't know much about that because of I we don't want to do fear-mongering, right?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not my purpose in telling anybody this, but it's a reality.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is rooted in science.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what how medicine, you know, what medicine knows.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think when you're thinking it from that angle as well, like you want to use bras that are actually like going to support the normal, you know, like the an anatomy, right?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: The normal anatomy, because your body is made to protect itself.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So every single thing that the body like the way things sit on your body, the way that they are positioned, like all of it serves a purpose, right?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Anatomy serves a purpose.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can't just look at it like, okay, I'm gonna push my boobs together, and that's the I mean, that's fine.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going on, you know, you're going out and you want to like accentuate your cleavage, that's cool.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: But like you need something that's going to be also like an everyday practical solution because there's environmental things that happen, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And all of this is linked in some way to how you are going to experience your health later down in life.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's also an important, you know, thing to keep in mind for us as women is that you know, breasts aren't just part of our body, they actually serve extremely complex, you know, physiological roles.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the tissue is very fragile, you know, that's inside.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the most delicate and sensitive lymphatic and endocrine tissue in your body.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, this is the other thing I will say.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I, again, nobody wants fear mongering.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying, I'm not drawing any conclusions, but here's here's one of the things that I've learned along this journey that is puzzling to me.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we probably can go quickly to some of the root causes of of why this is the case.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I my medical director and I have found no studies evaluating the impact of underwire bras on our breast health.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're not even looking at it.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Even bringing that in.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so and so I think this is my conclusion.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I am comfortable saying.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: If after any kind of breast surgery, the first thing your surgeon tells you is no more underwire for the rest of your life.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we should all just move to healthier bras.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason they're telling you that.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love it.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the food thing is so, you know, I've I've seen so many women that come in with the size bra that they were told they were when they were 17.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now they're 59 and it's sitting on breast tissue.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the wire sitting on breast tissue.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of women have breast tissue that extends to the underarm area.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's yeah.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, ergonomic bras.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and then the toxicity.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta, I gotta talk about the toxicity.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think that people in the United States in particular have a false perception of the um regulatory controls for toxicity in products.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is not the same as other developed countries.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have followed European Union toxicity standards since the beginning.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am testing constantly every shipment for BPAs, known PFAS, there are so many toxins.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: CNN had an article that came out that looked at some of the big brands.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can look it up, showing that you could absorb up to 22 times the quote unquote safe amount of BPA in a single day of use for some of these polyester bras.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, here you are avoiding plastic water bottles, trying to, you know, listening to a podcast about clean products and how you can make smarter decisions.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're gonna put on a garment and without any knowledge, you're absorbing BPAs through your skin.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's uh, you know, yeah, get products.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in fewer better things.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about fast fashion at the beginning.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't have a thousand styles.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have eight beautiful styles that really allow you to be wire free through your entire wardrobe.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they are not the cheapest bras on the market.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll own it, but they are the highest quality.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they are the bra that you're gonna reach for day after day after day because it's safe.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's non-toxic, it looks good under your clothes, it's just gear.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can put it on and go.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to do.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I love what you're creating, and I think that it's so needed, it's been needed for so long.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I really applaud you for, you know, having the guts to say, I'm going to do this the right way.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, even if it's not, because you know, a lot of times what I see with entrepreneurs is they keep, you know, hopping on bandwagons or products that they know are going to sell on easily on TikTok or easily somewhere else.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a very different um thing when you create something out of true purpose and you create your own category.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what you're doing is just it's very, very impressive and truly hats off to you, you know, for for having the guts to do it.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it honestly, it's been uh it's been a really amazing journey.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I've learned so much along the way.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's still so much we can do.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna launch maternity next year.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's exciting.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's really exciting.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Maternity needs, yeah, we need stuff from maternity.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's like nothing out there.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: People are wearing like potato sacks.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's yeah, we need we need products that do the job, you know, and products that respect you.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I love it.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I love it so much, and I think that everybody, you know, if you're if you're actually like debating, you know, like, hey, I need to go get new bras or something's going on where your current bras are not working for you, I really urge you to like think a little deeper than just, you know, this is um, you know, garments and apparel.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to really think about what that means for your breast tissue.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we do have to start thinking.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I really believe in the power of like integrating science into almost everything you do in life.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's maybe I'm just a nerd, but like I think that when you lead with science and you lead with understanding and knowledge about the body and our tissues, like you just make better decisions, even as a consumer.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you buy better products and you vote with the you vote with your dollars when you do that.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I really encourage everybody best check out the brand.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be linking it all in the show notes.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely scroll down if you're listening right now.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, we'll be back next time.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, so I hope you love that episode.
• 36:05
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• 36:10
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• 36:12
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• 36:27
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• 36:44
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• 36:48
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• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really a great place for all of you science geeks out there that want to learn a little bit more.
• 36:58
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• 37:05
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• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.