Yahoo Finance Bra pain inspired Evelyn & Bobbie founder to become go-to solution brand
The stories you don't know about some of the world's best and little-known brands
In 2008, Bree McKeen was fresh out of Stanford Business School and working for a small venture capital firm, but experiencing uncomfortable bra pain with her weekday rigours in Silicon Valley.
She thought it was due to her posture or that she wasn’t fit enough and so spent six months on her core strength. Standing in her physiologist’s office one day, McKeen was told she had a neuromuscular issue, akin to a pebble in her shoe. If her bra hurt it would affect how she stood straight.
“There was nothing that worked in my size," recalls McKeen, Evelyn & Bobbie CEO and founder. "How are we living in a world of artificial intelligence where I don’t have a comfortable bra? Half of the population is putting this on every morning for life.”
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McKeen, a 34DDD, had hit upon a product gap. As she delved further into the history of the underwire bra — first invented in 1931 — she realised that there had been no “meaningful structural innovation” for over 90 years.
That is until her first 3D technology patent was issued in 2014. A year of research had seen her bra design help redistribute weight from the shoulder muscles to the core muscles.
“The design thesis was around how a woman looked and didn’t take into account how she felt and comfort didn’t matter,” says McKeen on a recent reconnaissance trip to London, with her wire-free bra solution brand set to expand to the UK this spring.
A second lightbulb moment underpinning her decision came when she was raising money and spending time with predominantly male investors. McKeen wanted to convince them why a comfort bra was needed.
She had given investors homework; to speak to four women about whether they loved bra shopping, the number of bras they owned and how they felt about them at 6pm on a Thursday. Mostly negative answers were revealed.
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It was enough to convince her to quit her job. She moved to Portland, Oregon, home of leading apparel firms like Under Armour, Nike and Adidas, where she recruited talent from before launching in 2018.
While the bra market has seen an uptick in celebrity investment, McKeen says there is less of a focus on technology and approaching it as a problem solution.
Further, says McKeen, the alphanumeric sizing has never been standardised. “All these legacy systems didn't make sense,” she admits. “As an outsider, it was about making sense of it all. Women need to put on a bra and be comfortable throughout the day. They're willing to pay for that and we have to make it easier.”
Evelyn & Bobbie, a $20m company, aims to simplify sizing with its small through to 3XL fits. The bras, seamless and invisible under clothes, can also stretch to fit bodies up to a K cup.
With the bras costing about £95, the company saw 90% growth in 2023. “We can’t explain our growth through our marketing spend, so we know women are telling each other about us,” admits McKeen.
They are also telling Evelyn & Bobbie in their droves — “I’ve never written a love letter to a company, I’ve only written complaints,” smiles McKeen — with the outfit's customer age ranges from 13 to 95.
She adds: “This product category was neglected for so long. I’m now comfortable every day and get dressed like my husband. Why would you fuss over something that you have to wear all day long?”
‘Make it yourself’ was McKeen’s mantra growing up in the US. As a child hailing from an outdoor mentality, she made dolls made out of pine cones or built tree houses across creeks.
The company name is also one which has family attachments. Evelyn is her maternal grandmother who she never met, while her entrepreneurial and “meticulous seamstress” aunt Bobbie taught her how to sow.
Now, McKeen aspires to become “synonymous with the bra solution globally”.
“The female body is ready,” she says. “These bodies have been existing with these needs the whole time, we have been looking at it through the wrong lens.
“The way we are winning is because we are so focused and not trying to be everything for everyone.
"I’m not trying to be a fashion or trend-driven brand, we are that fundamental solution women are reaching for every day.”
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