Engineering Bras For Comfort & Confidence Ft. Evelyn & Bobbie

0:02Hey guys, welcome back to the Kid Anarchy. This is a very special episode because we're going to be diving into the world of fashion today. 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 and it's not so much anymore about these tried and true articles that we have in our collection it's more so about like well what can I get for like five bucks which I absolutely just don't like that mentality 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.

0:40I get very excited. So without further ado, please welcome Brie McKean, who is the visionary founder of Evelyn and Bobby. Welcome, Brie. I'm so excited to host you. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, no, I'm excited to chat with you and learn all about what led to the creation of Evelyn and Bobby. I love your brand. 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. Yeah, well, my journey is not a straight line into fashion. And it's funny because, you know, people ask me how long I've been in fashion.

1:15And, and I say, well, I'm still not I'm in engineering, because I think about what I do as making, making gear for real women in our real lives. because that's really where my journey began. So I was working in finance. I had a really unique opportunity to work for boutique venture firm. And my job was to do diligence and evaluate early stage consumer healthcare companies. Actually, my undergrad was in medical anthropology and I've always been really interested in health and culture, the intersection of health and culture. And I had what for many people would be a dream job, but I'm also a 34 G I've always had a lot of heavy breast tissue, you know, since a very early age.

2:07And 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 PM. I always took my bra off in the car on the way home. And, you know, here I am looking kind of at the forefront of innovation and I can't find a damn comfortable bra. I mean, it was ridiculous. Yeah. So that was the beginning. I mean, I really came into this as an outsider. 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.

2:50And I don't think people ever, you know, realize that, you know, I see a lot of young women nowadays, well, I think for a long time, it's been like this, 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? It's a whole different story, you know, on that on the flip side of things. So I feel your pain, literally, literally feel my pain. And that was part of this aha moment, because, you know, I was having posture issues, tension, headaches, all these issues. And, and Dr.

3:22Active, you're not alone. The average bra size in this country is a 34 F. So you're, you're an E a 34 F like this is a substantial load that women are carrying around. And I, in the beginning was worried that it was my posture. You know, I was sitting in a chair, looking at a computer too much. I've just got to build my core strength. 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. I was standing in his office. He said, Bree, you're, this is after six months of doing bar method, like really four to five times a week.

4:01I made a concerted effort to improve my core strength. 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. And I was standing there. He said, your posture looks great. 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. And he explained to me that that's called a neuromuscular feedback loop. 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.

4:42It just does within a stem or two. And so I realized he said, go down to the mall, get a bra that feels great when you stand up straight. Okay. Well that broad didn't exist. I've been looking for it for decades. And I just kind of had this lightning strike. I was like, hold on all of these powerful women walking into boardrooms, into the surgery room, into the classroom, all of these women, average 34 F in this country. And we're all wearing something that's actually hurting our posture. And you know, like this, what's going on? How did we get here? 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.

5:24And it hadn't been updated. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. 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 and I was like in my early 20s and you know I was in the best shape of my life you know I was an athlete I was doing great but I mean you can't breasts don't go away for anyone listening by the way 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 you know I know it's fat fatty tissue but that's still there you know so you could be in the best shape of your life and you still have this problem you know 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 like i was having such issues finding my right size and i was almost feeling like am i crazy you know like am i just like am i bigger than what i realize or like you know what I mean like I something's wrong right like it didn't feel normal to me and it was like the I think this is like the classic story when it comes to fashion right where it's like you feel like you're a large but then you end up buying an extra large or whatever and it's like that's what was happening in the bra world especially in the bra world you know 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 especially cup size and stuff but for women who don't like we don't need a boost.

6:55We just need something that's going to work. Like it's a nightmare trying to navigate that, you know, cause everything's got padding in it. Everything's got boosting in it. Everything's got the underwire that just like, it doesn't help. I mean, it's a lot. 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 mind. Millions of us are having this experience quietly in dressing rooms. You said, is this normal? Something must be wrong. What's my right size, right?

7:32So this feeling that there must be something wrong with my body, that my size must be uniquely, like this is what the industry created through the structures, right? And it was like, this is what, that was my experience. 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. And, and this, this feeling that because the garment doesn't fit, perhaps there's something wrong with our bodies. That was the thing I was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, let's, let's really dig into that.

8:12Right. Because the idea, first of all, a lot of people don't realize, I'm just going to give you a quick couple of bullet points on the history of the bra. So if you go grab one of those underwire bras from your drawer, snip the underwire casement and pull it out, it will sit flat on the table. Show me a place on your body that is flat like that. Right. So we're taking this piece of metal that does not conform to the natural anatomy and physiology. We're pairing it with these narrow straps that sit in an ergonomically incorrect place, usually on the trapezius muscle. That's why you see people with these deep indentations.

8:55And then you take tissue, you take delicate endocrine tissue that is expanding and contracting based on the natural cycles, right? Up to 25 % of fluctuation in the volume of the bus, you have one in five women that have a full cup size between the breasts. So we have these, these, 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. Oh, and by the way, there's no standardization. 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.

9:41So we think that this is an us problem, but it's not, it's the way that this garment has been, has been designed for so long. And so, you know, the whole, I get so passionate about this. I can't, I love it. I feel like you're the first person in my life that is explaining this the way it I love it. Please keep going. Yeah. It turns out our bodies work differently than the design of the bra. And so, you know, for me, the Holy grail of bras, which was truly unattainable for decades, the bar was pretty low. I want it to look good under my clothes. I want it to not hurt at the end of the day. Like really, that was it.

10:24That was the criteria. And I got to tell you, you know, my whole life, my boobs were a problem. They were a problem for me. They were a problem. I felt like, you know, I'm stuffed into these bras where they're, I've got bubbling under my shirt. It's like these, you know, the boobs, my boobs walk into the room before me. The muffin tops, the muffin tops, like the, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Or you get the wire, the wire-free bras. And this isn't true for my wire-free bras because we, we took on the challenge of replacing the underwire with something better, but you know, a conventional underwire bra is great for comfort, but you can't wear it into the boardroom.

11:02You can't wear it in a professional setting. You get one big boob that kind of sits in the middle. It's not flattering. So, you know, I will tell you that this morning, so I'm wearing the Evelyn mesh, the Evelyn and Bobby Evelyn mesh this morning. I opened my bra drawer. 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. Every single one of those bras moves with my body throughout the day. Every single one of them is perfectly smoothing under my clothes. Every single one of them, I gain and lose five pounds up and down throughout the month.

11:39It's just, that's just how my body is. And sometimes it's more than that. My bra still fits no matter what's going on because the bra adapts to my body and it's got these built-in structures that are very soft. 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. So I don't think about my bra anymore. I don't have anything working against my posture. And, you know, that was for so long. And I think still today for so many women impossible. And, you know, that's why I was like, okay, this has to change.

12:20We've got to throw out all the old ideas of how a bra should be made start from scratch. And it's been a long journey, but that's what we did. 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. Absolutely. I love it. I think this is so brilliant because honestly, there's so many things I want to talk about you know I think that at some point and I want to talk about this honestly because skin anarchy you know I decided to to change our focus from just skincare because of this exact reason 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 okay like nobody wants to talk about that 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.

13:11And 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. 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 Secret, by the way, this is to all of the retail stores out there that are doing it wrong. 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.

13:49It's not obesity, right, at all involved. It's just that she has certain needs when it comes to her breast size, and you expose her to an environment, a retail store that cannot cater to her no matter what even if they find her the right quote-unquote size the strap is going to dig into her back she's gonna look ridiculous 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 my clothing right my real life 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 when people aren't going to take me seriously or whatever all those thoughts that go through your head and it's all induced by somebody else it's not because you don't like your own body I mean on one side we're telling women a healthy breast size is the standard of beauty and on the other side we're creating products that are literally they're contradictory and oxymoronic to that same principle that's been rooted in our biology since the beginning of time right truly rooted in our biology yeah it's insane to me that's that's literally insanity 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 the sports bra thing you were talking about we all did that right like we were wearing sports I remember wearing a sports bra under my uh what do you call it like my business attire and feeling like you know what I mean like okay well this is the only thing that's not going to make me look ridiculous you know like I don't want to look like I'm going on a date I want to look professional you know and and that's not it that's just not it that's just it can't be it that can't be our approach so I think what you're doing it goes so far beyond like apparel and fashion and 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, so that's, that's my point.

15:55I know I ran it a lot there, but Oh, my God, I just every every single point that you made is so aligned with our philosophy. We have up on the wall in our headquarters, this little mini manifesto written up on the wall. And it says it turns out your body's perfect. It's bras that are the problem. we're bringing the bra into this century no underwires no body shaming no bullshit that's literally what it says on the wall and it's you know i think the thing that we've done that is different is we've simply been empirical right we looked at the body demographics of the population that we're serving you know one of the things that was so mind-blowing to me dr ecta was um When I first started, and this has slowly changed, but very little, most of the major retailers, the biggest size that they would have is a 38 triple D.

16:54There 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 34 I or, you know, all these, our bodies are the same, but they're all so unique. And, you know, I think we have been reflecting ourselves in the products that are available to us. And we at Evelyn and Bobby have 270 fit models. I was, it blew my mind. 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. I mean, they're real bodies. Of course, they're real people.

17:35I just mean they're, they are professionals who are paid to maintain a static weight, which is also not typical for people. 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. And by the way, there's only seven it's extra small through three XL. Like our, our sizing is so simple because I don't want you to have to be stressed out about what your bra sizes. You're just a medium. And if you gain five pounds or lose five pounds, guess what? You're still a medium. The garment expands and contracts to fit you given your volume on any given day.

18:16And so, yeah, I mean, I think that it is possible to be empirical, to be scientific about product design. What is the population I'm serving? What is the job that this garment is doing? And then how do we actually design it with that in mind? I am designing a, we're on the final stages of a busty bra right now, which I'm really excited about. So the busty bra is specifically designed for people that have a really, um, high ratio. So they'll have like a tiny rib cage and really full volume. And you know, that product has, it's on its second wear test. It's going into a two week wear test with every single size being tested on three different people.

18:58I mean, it's so rigorous what we do. We're texting with every single tester every day to get specific areas of drill down. So, you know, we really obsess over the design because it's not about how it looks. It's how it performs. I love that. I love that. 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. I mean, I know right now the world is buzzing about menopause right and I am all about it I am here for it 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 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 mastectomies or like you know maybe not a you know not a bilateral one maybe it's only one side right there's there are special cases for everything so like you know you have to understand that the female body it will change 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 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 your 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 both you know you know if actually like physical literally but also figuratively because and compliment you so you shouldn't have to fight that battle on top of the battles you're already fighting you know in your daily life I think that's where this really for me hits home because it impacts women, you know, that are not necessarily like, okay, I'm in my twenties.

20:53I have perfect perky breasts. You know what I mean? I can wear a towel to work and I'll look great, that kind of thing. So I think it's very, very 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. Thanks. And I have to throw this in there that there isn't a better post-surgical bra than Avalon and Bobby. So I work with my medical advisor who is an aesthetic breast surgeon out of New York. She does a lot of breast reductions, a lot of other sort of, I mean, she does augmentations and, and a number of corrective surgeries.

21:30And she gives every single one of her patients in an Avalon and Bobby bra after they're out of their, you know, the immediate post-surgical garment, because there's nothing in my bras to irritate scars. There's nothing to restrict swelling, lymphedema, the natural healing process. And, you know, you can even put up to a size seven prosthesis right in the cup. So there's a little pocket because we have optional modesty pads. You don't need the pads. I take mine out because I'm like, free the nipple. Guess what? I got nipples. But a lot of people like that modesty, you know, if you're in a professional environment.

22:07But you can put a prosthesis right in there. And, you know, if you have one natural breast and one reconstructed breast, it does amazing things for realigning symmetry. I am, I will tell you the best part of my day. We have a customer voice Slack channel, and I'm not kidding. I cry once a week because I, I mean, I, I thought that making a better bra was going to be valuable, right? 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. 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.

22:54These are the only bras that she can wear. 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, these comfortable garments were for her. 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. And when you find something that gives you just easy relief, it can be really impactful.

23:40Yeah. No, I think that this is a very, very like, you know, multifaceted kind of conversation because it impacts everybody. And I think also, you know, one of the big things, I'm glad you have the, you know, you can remove the modesty pads. And I mean, if you can, 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. Is that available for people like where if they want to add in more cups or something they can? Yeah. Well, if you have, if you have something like some people who've had lumpectomy have these little, like we call them cutlets, these little cutlets, but yes, you can put those right in the cup.

24:16I had one woman who would take, she had a little bit of asymmetry because of a lumpectomy and she took the pad out of the left side and doubled up the pads on the right to make everything look just right. Um, but yes, they're there. I mean, the thing we call it the magical moldable bra because it just flexes with your body. 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. 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. So I partnered with the most advanced performance athletic apparel manufacturers in the world.

25:03So think of all the big athletic apparel giants. That's who I share my supply chain with. 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. And that is actually very difficult to do. The, the yarn that goes into our bras is, is almost a hundredth of a human hair. It's like spider webs. It's so fine. And what that does is it creates this really powerful four-way stretch that's incredibly adaptive.

25:45So you get the bra, follow the size chart. It should be snug when you first get it. And by the way, step into them. That's something people aren't used to. You slide it up over your hips, catch that lift on the way up and wear it for three days. And you truly have a custom bra in three days. It will use the heat and sustained pressure from your body to stretch only where it's needed. And it's really, it's really amazing. Cause sometimes people are like, oh man, this is, this is a powerful bra. And then on day three, they forget they're wearing it. Yeah, that's really cool. I mean, I think that that's the I asked you also because I think a lot of women out there, young women, like I said, I worry about them, right?

26:25Because it's fine. It's fine. Like you guys want to go get breast surgery and you want to get implants. I mean, it's your body, you know, you do what you want. But at the same time, if you're somebody who's just doing it because you think, yeah, you know, this is going to 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, you can just have options for yourself, right?

26:56Before you go and get an invasive procedure done that you might not know what's going to happen. a lot of times these surgeries are not done by the best people and I'm not trying to hate on anybody again but being in medicine myself I've seen a lot of you know whack whacko surgeons out there that are charging next to nothing and they're giving everybody you know a size f 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 you don't know about what looks natural what doesn't look natural a lot of times people opt in for procedures that are not meant for them.

27:31And so when you create options through apparel and you create options that can help you figure out, you know, what is actually going to look good on me, I think that's just going to help make, you know, help people make more informed decisions. So I think it also plays in in that angle, you know, from that angle of like helping customers 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. Like this is what I'm supposed to look like? I think that's huge. Yeah. And it goes on the other side too. Um, there's a bit of a significant increase in breast reductions and, um, Dr.

28:08Naidoo, 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 defy bra. It's our most ergonomic bra. It's the best. If you have any kind of bra pain, that's the one that I, I wear almost every day. And, um, you know, but yeah, Yeah. I mean, surgery is not small. There is risk of complication. There are risks anytime we cut the body open. And so, you know, I, I love the idea of a non-surgical first stop to see if you can find a solution there, because if you can, that's terrific. Absolutely. Absolutely. And also I think 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.

28:55And what I realized very quickly when I dove into breast cancer was that calcium plays a big role in breast cancer. So 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. 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 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 and this can actually become pre-con like pre-cancerous like later down in your life and people don't really understand you know patients don't know much about that because of we don't want to do fear-mongering right and that's not my purpose in telling anybody this but it's a reality this is rooted in science that's what how medicine you know what medicine knows 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 anatomy right the normal anatomy because your body is made to protect itself 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 anatomy serves a purpose and so you can't just look at it like okay I'm going to push my boobs together and that's the I mean that's fine if you're going on you know you're going out you want to like accentuate your cleavage that's cool but like you need something that's going to be also like an everyday practical solution because there's environmental things that happen right and all of this is linked in some way to how you are going to experience your health later down in life 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, and the tissue is very fragile, you know, that's some of the most delicate and sensitive, emphatic and endocrine tissue in your body.

31:00And, you know, this is the other thing I will say, and I, again, nobody wants fear mongering. 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. And I think we probably can go quickly to some of the root causes of why this is the case. But I my medical director and I have found no studies evaluating the impact of underwire bras on our breast health. We're not even looking at it. And so I think this is my conclusion. This is what I am comfortable saying. If after any kind of breast surgery, the first thing your surgeon tells you is no more underwear for the rest of your life.

31:48Maybe we should all just move to healthier bras. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's a reason they're telling you that. And the fifth thing is so, you know, I've seen so many women that come in with the size bra that they were told they were when they were 17. Well, now they're 59 and it's sitting on breast tissue. You can see the wire sitting on breast tissue. A lot of women have breast tissue that extends to the underarm area. You know, it's yeah. So hey, ergonomic bras. Oh, and then the toxicity. I got it. I got to talk about the toxicity. Oh yeah. I think that people in the United States in particular have a false perception of the regulatory controls for toxicity in products.