We’ve all had those fitting-room moments where we stare into the mirror and wonder: Does this really have to be so hard? But when a fashion CEO has one of those moments, that’s when real change can happen. Fran Dunaway may run one of the most buzzed-about underwear brands, but after she had a double mastectomy last May, she found herself an almost complete loss when it came to bra shopping. A three-time cancer survivor, the TomboyX co-founder had already experienced one of the less-talked-about aesthetic effects of battling the disease: how breasts can change shape or size after radiation treatments. She remembers wishing she had a bra where she could add an insert on just one side or stack a couple of inserts. Then, after her recent mastectomy, she opted not to have breast-reconstruction surgery. “The reality was that it would mean two more surgeries for me and I’d had enough surgery, thank you,” she says. “For me, I just couldn’t get my head around putting myself through that to make other people feel comfortable with how I look now.”

After the surgery, she also couldn’t get her head around how underwhelming the bra options were, especially considering how many women undergo the same surgery. “I was given a prescription and told I could go to a department store to be fitted for a mastectomy bra and I thought, that’s awesome,” she says. “But when I got there, the options for me were pretty limited.” Rather than seeing bras designed with her situation in mind, she was given regular bras adapted with a flimsy piece of fabric meant to hold a prosthetic, in styles much more frilly and femme than anything she’d ever wear. Not only were the options off-putting and ill-fitting, “the ones I got were coming apart within two weeks—hardly an empowering experience overall,” recalls Dunaway, who continued to lead the TomboyX team throughout her most recent breast-cancer treatment and recovery. “I thought, well, it’s a good thing I own a bra company!”

Of course, Dunaway also knew firsthand that a perfect bra is easier to dream up than actually build. “Bras are one of the most complicated things to make, right up there with shoes, because of all the various components required to do it well and to do it comfortably,” she says. TomboyX’s first bra styles had focused on simplicity and ease—”for lounging around, not bouncing around.” Yet she immediately set out to design bra options more functional, comfortable and versatile for women interested in using prosthetic inserts for whatever reason—post-mastectomy, during transition, or just to even out asymmetrical breasts. The resulting styles—the Ruched Bralette with Removable Inserts and the Soft Sports Bra with Removable Inserts—feature built-in pouches large enough that you can easily insert prosthetic breast forms, if desired, without any struggle or worry that they’ll pop out.

Source link