Bree McKeen On Reinventing A 100-Year-Old Industry, One Bra At A Time
31:55 Share

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

So many times you'll be in a conversation with an investor who has no interest in investing in you, but they're looking at another company next door and they're doing due diligence on that investment and they want to learn about what you're doing. Remember that and give them information very intentionally. And it's like dating, you know, go slow. It's okay. Go slow. It's a very important relationship.

Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us today on Her Money. I'm Jean Chatzky. And I'm wondering what was your most recent big idea, your most recent brainstorm? Have you ever invented anything or patented anything? According to the World Economic Forum, just 10.9% of all

all patents in the U.S. are granted to women. That number is climbing slowly, but you know us here at Her Money, we're impatient. These things do not happen quickly enough. There is this enormous

enormous gender gap when it comes to who gets credit and who gets compensated for all manner of ideas and inventions. My guest today, Brie McKean, she knows a thing or two about that and about patents. She's got six of them. Brie is the founder of lingerie brand Evelyn and

and Bobby because she had a dream for a better bra. She struggled for years with aching shoulders, tension, headaches, and posture issues from wearing an underwire bra, and she was disappointed with the alternative bra options on the market, so she created her own solution to

Today, we're going to hear about how she did it and what the landscape is like for other women with inventions of their own. Bree, welcome to the show. Hi, Jean. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Of course. So...

The landscape that you entered is a vast one. The lingerie and underwear industry is a $13 billion market, and yet it has long been dominated by men. Why is that, and how's it changing? So I studied anthropology in my undergrad, and it took me several years to come up with

what I consider to be the metaphor of the status quo in intimates and in part why I think it was dominated by men for so long. And I call it the woman as cupcake metaphor to be decorated and consumed.

And I think for a very long time, intimates were about how it made you look, how sexy it made you. And, you know, there was a moment in time where a woman owning her own sexuality was very much a feminist ideal. But it wasn't focused on the engineering, and I do mean engineering, of the product.

And that is really why I created my company, because I wanted to create products that worked with our bodies, not against them. And that really started, you know, like you introduced from my personal experience. I was working in venture capital, getting pitched ideas all day long. And I think I kind of had a series of aha moments that I

We live in a world where we have artificial intelligence, but I didn't have a basic bra that I could wear for 12 hours, look good in my clothes, present myself professionally, and not want to tear it off at the end of the day. And yet the bra market itself, I mean, I can't tell you how many new and different bras I've tried in the last decade.

just few years, right? I mean, third love, honey love, they're all love something or another. I mean, which is all just a way of saying, look, the bra market is, it's pretty saturated at this point. There are a lot of options, but you still saw this gap out there. What was it that all of these people had not invented?

So this comes back to intellectual property. And as a woman who had sat on the investor side of the table, I was very focused on building a patent portfolio from the very beginning because I knew, as you know well, Jean, as a woman-led company and a female-focused product, I knew that I would need that intellectual property.

to get the funding that I needed. The intellectual property that I was focused on was a replacement for the underwear. Many people don't realize that the underwire was patented in 1931. It's still in 90% of bras in the market. Almost 100 years of this technology that was very novel in 1931.

But putting a flat piece of steel around each breast in 2025, I would argue, is an old idea. And so I had experienced a lot of wire-free bras that take the wire out. Well, the average bra size in this country, if you just look at it as an anthropologist, as a public health perspective, the average bra size in this country is a 34F. I'm a 34G bra.

So that is a significant amount of breast tissue that we are carrying around every day. And just taking the wire out of the bra, for me, creates kind of one lump in the middle. I don't have a defined silhouette. I don't have nice lift and separation. You take the wire out, you take the support out.

And I said, I don't want to take the support out. I want to replace the support with something better. And that's what I focused on. And we were 3D printing things, Jean, like, I mean, hundreds of 3D printed prototypes. I don't think anybody cares, but I did create the world's first completely 3D printed bra out of multiple prototypes.

And it was really getting to that question of what is the next evolution of that structure? And the answer is the EB core. And that's what my patents are around. And it's a 3D sling that together with the long line snug band creates a shelf.

And that's why we're able to support up to a K-cup with no wire. I mean, the product really feels like a second skin. And, you know, it may look like other things on the market, but when you wear it, you really...

You can understand that it's different. It does feel different. It feels a lot different than a sports bra and it feels different than the non-wire bras. You were a managing partner at a Silicon Valley investment firm. I imagine you were making really good money. What made you decide to take a leap?

I had an incredible job. I had been given an incredible opportunity by an incredible person who was new to venture capital and was a wealthy private equity investor who had set aside some of his private capital to do VC. And I was given a front row seat. I mean, we worked together to develop the investment criteria and the due diligence process. And so in many ways, it was a dream job.

But the part of that that I loved, Jean, was the building. And I think at some point I realized that part of an investor's job is to get to know as quickly as possible so they can move on to the ones that warrant due diligence, right?

And I, at some point, realized that I was on the wrong side of the table because what was interesting to me was solving the problems and digging into, "Okay, but how are you going to do that? And what would really make it different?" And so, at the same time, I'm having this amazing experience working in finance.

I was also having a terrible experience wearing a bra. And I had kind of a big aha moment in my doctor's office, actually. I was working with this man, Dr. Callister, who was a physiologist. And, you know, I cared as a 28-year-old young woman in a very male-dominated, in the heart of Silicon Valley. We were, you know, in downtown San Francisco. I cared very much about carrying myself with authority and poise.

And so I thought, okay, well, maybe I'm slouching because I don't have enough core strength. And I spent about six months doing really focused, I did bar method and really got my core strength up. And I was standing in this physiologist's office and he said, Bree, you have arrived to your best posture. Congratulations. And I just kind of blurted out, I said, yeah, but when I stand like this, I have these two pressure points from my underwire.

And he explained, he said, that's a neuromuscular feedback loop. I'm so glad you told me that. He said, if your bra hurts when you stand up straight, you're going to slouch. And he related it to a pebble in your shoe. So, you know, if you get a pebble in your shoe, you don't have to tell your brain to curl around it. Your foot just curls right around it instantly.

He said, "That's how our bodies work." And so for me, every time I stood up straight, I had these two pressure points from the 10 to 15 pounds of breast tissue, depending on the variation of my weight and menstrual cycle.

pushing down into that and it was affecting my posture. And, you know, it really does make a difference to have something that is intelligently designed with your body and the population demographics in mind. I have 270 fit models, real women who are, who are

giving you feedback all the time and yet it doesn't always work, right? I know you created a strapless bra before Evelyn and Bobby that did not take off.

It almost killed me. That was just devastating. Tell us about that experience because there is a need for a good strapless. The strapless that I own is literally 15 years old because every time I try to replace it, I can't because it's the only one that has ever worked for me. What happened in this experience and what made you try again?

I'm really grateful for that failure. I know that people say that. I mean it. The prototypes that we developed. So first of all, I took something that a big company developed

an established brand would have taken at a minimum 48 months. And I wasn't a designer. And so I think the first mistake was that I had wildly unrealistic expectations for how long it takes to create a brand new first of kind product in the world today. So where that product went wrong was from the translation of prototype to what was actually possible in mass production.

And my development timeline was wildly unrealistic based on the newness of that product. And so what happened was when we went and trust me, I work with the most incredible, most innovative factories in the world. I could not have better partners. But to create something on a 3D printer and then translate that to mass production, that's a vast gap.

And the product just ended up being a lot heavier and bulkier than it needs to be to really achieve the wear experience that you need. It had a proprietary fit algorithm. It was like so future forward. But ultimately, it was so complex.

that it made it very difficult. So first, the product was a little bit too, it was bulky. And secondly, the purchase path was so complex. It was too much for the consumer. And what that taught me, Jean, which was the most important lesson, was that simplicity is everything. And it's especially everything for bras because, and I know you know this feeling, you said you've tried so many bras.

I call it disappointment fatigue. You get this great Instagram ad and oh, it's going to change your life. And then you try it and you're like, it's just literally like everything else or it does less than what I've tried before. And so I think women have this what's called disappointment fatigue. That's what we've kind of branded it internally. And so we're always looking for like, how do we get her past her disappointment fatigue?

But yes, there were so many mistakes, but that's what it taught me. And I'm so grateful for that because our bras are so easy. We fit over a hundred sizes in seven sizes. So, you know, you told me your bra size, you're just a small. Right. It's really interesting, which sort of brings us back to this history of bra patents, right? The last time

that I spoke with a designer in your industry who created patents. Actually, she wrote her own patents because she didn't have lawyers to afford patents. It was Sarah Blakely at the beginning of Spanx. Ah, yes. I did my own patent drawings because paying the drafter was too expensive. Yeah. I did have a lawyer. But there haven't been that many changes to bra patents yet.

since the 1930s. So what is it about this one in particular that made you need to receive a new patent, right? I mean, why didn't the third love people when they started with the half sizes? Trust me, I've tried everything. Why wasn't patenting a necessity there? This will blow your mind. This may blow your mind.

When I applied for my first patent, it was way back in 2013. I got my first patent within a year. I was expecting a two to five year battle with the patent office. I got the first patent within a year and the U.S. Patent Office had me defend against only one patent.

It was a patent from 1965 that had articulating metal parts. I call it the shark tooth bra. It had articulating metal. It never made it to market. It was patented by a man. That was the only patent they asked me to defend against. We've never talked about the process of applying for patents on this show. Like, what do you do?

do? And how long, why does it take three to five years? There's two types of patents, design patents and utility patents.

A design patent says, this is a unique design. It looks special. And we've never had something that looks just like this before. And the Burberry plaid is a great example. You can't copy the Burberry plaid, or I don't know if they still have a design patent on that. You can't patent or you can't have a product that looks just like that. They will pull it in customs if they have a design patent. So it protects the way something looks. I have utility patents.

That's what you have on your iPhone. So if Apple comes up with a new innovation, and this is why they're so careful to protect their intellectual property, it's the first time that something has worked that way. So utility patents protect the way something works. They can go get a utility patent on that. Now, design patents, easy to get. Utility patents, hard to get. If you change the design on a design patent only 30%, it's fine. It's pretty subjective.

Design patents give you limited protection. Utility patents give you a lot of protection. It says you can't have something that works exactly like this, or it's an infringement on your patent. And so as you're going through that process, the job of the U.S. Patent Office is to go through all of the existing patents and to reference known prior art, so things that are already in the market, and say, is this truly novel? Or has something that works like this already existed in the world?

And what the patent office found was that there's nothing like the EB sling.

Sometimes I have this thought where I'm like, gosh, it seems so obvious, right? Take out the hard part and take that important zone of support and separation and replace it with something soft, right? In our case, we've used bonded layers of really supportive bonding. And that's what creates that beautiful lifted silhouette. The patent office has to give you things that they think might have similar features.

features. The only one they gave me is this patent from 1965. So what you what I took away from that is that the underwire has been used so ubiquitously, right? It's still in 90% of bras. There hasn't been a ton of innovation in bras. People have been doing different versions of the same thing for almost 100 years. And like, look at the evolution of other essential products in your life, right? Look at the telephone. Can you imagine using 100 year old telephone?

Or just look at the iPhone, right? I mean, you brought up the iPhone. Look at how many different iterations of the iPhone there's been. They seem to come up with one every single year. And I'm sure every single year they have a new round of patents. I'm wondering for people who have an idea or think that they would like to start a business, if trying to come up with something that is truly new and different is...

something to aim for or whether you need the idea and then if you get something that's truly new and different you're just lucky think about that for a second we're going to take a very quick break

The human body is pretty amazing. It can heal, rebuild, and adapt in ways that even science is still catching up to. Trust me on this. I ran the marathon last year. But let's get real. As we age, those natural processes, they slow down. They slow down.

That's where Ancient Nutrition's Multi-Collagen Advanced Lean comes in. This is not just any collagen supplement. It's powered by clinically studied ingredients that are shown to support fat loss, build lean muscle, reduce joint discomfort, and...

Bonus, improve the look and growth of skin, hair, and nails. And right now, Ancient Nutrition is offering 25% off your first order when you go to ancientnutrition.com slash hermoney. That's ancientnutrition.com slash hermoney for 25% off your first order. ancientnutrition.com slash hermoney.

One of the smartest apps to have on your phone in 2025? It's Upside. It's an app that gives users the power to earn real money that you can spend however you want on everyday purchases. Whether filling up the tank, shopping for groceries, or grabbing dinner, Upside makes it simple. Just open the app, click on the app, and you're ready to go.

Claim a nearby offer, pay as usual with a card, and snap a photo of the receipt. The cash back adds up fast. Users are earning hundreds of dollars a year. And here is the best part. It stacks with your credit card reward. So it's kind of like double dipping on savings, which of course we love.

Download the free Upside app and use the promo code HERMONEY to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's an extra 25 cents for every gallon on your first tank of gas using promo code HERMONEY.

We are back talking with Brie McKean. Brie is the founder of Bra Company, Evelyn and Bobby. And we're talking about having patent protection for your invention and whether if you want to start a business, if you want to make something, if that's a bar you should be aiming for. I mean, what do you think?

I am a big fan of intellectual property. So a couple of thoughts for those out there with an idea. The last several years, the amount of venture capital going to female-founded companies has hovered right around 2%. Right. There's a lot of male investors. And we can understand. People invest in what they know. If they don't wear bras or if you have another idea for a women's product, you have to be prepared to

to make your case for the value of that or find female investors, you know, but there are statistically there are fewer.

And so for me, having intellectual property, I believe, will help you get funding because it's something very concrete. You know, my investor did enormous due diligence. He had a binder this thick of the due diligence that he did on my patents. And they came back and said, wow, this is a really good patent. It's very strong. It's defensible. We believe we're investing in something. So that's the first reason why I say yes.

Number two,

copycatting has never been more prolific than today. Not only can they copy your product, but I've seen examples where they are taking people's marketing and putting, where a founder has a YouTube video selling her product and they're putting a different AI face on there. So piracy and copycatting has never been easier. And it's helpful to be able to say, hey, this product is patented and to be able to go to Amazon and say, hey, this is a patented product. You

you got to take that down. So I do think it actually just helps you protect your market share.

Those are the two main reasons why I think it's worth it. You came out of the VC world in order to start your business. What advice do you have for women, patentable or not, who are trying to pitch their ideas and get taken seriously and get some of that 2% of venture capital or even bump the number to the 3%, God forbid? Yeah.

Let me sit up in my chair because this is something that I feel very passionately about. Number one, you don't owe anyone any information about your company. I am giving you permission right now to hold your cards close to your chest. What I see women doing is going into these meetings with investors and they will ask you every question under the sun. You do not have to answer anything.

And what you should be doing is interviewing them and telling them nothing unless you really think they are a good partner for you. And there's some ways that you can pre-vet them, but tell them enough to gauge their interest. And you can say, well, I'm not sharing that. Of course, if we decide that this could be a good fit and we enter into due diligence together, of course, I'll tell you all of that. But for now, here's what I'd like to know about you. So number one, remember, it's a two-way interview.

They will ask you everything and you do not have to tell them. So many times you'll be in a conversation with an investor who has no interest in investing in you, but they're looking at another company next door and they're doing due diligence on that investment and they want to learn about what you're doing. Remember that and

Tell that give them information very intentionally. And it's like dating, you know, go slow. It's OK. Go slow. It's a very important relationship. And then the other thing is don't let investors waste your time. This was a lesson that was hard for me to learn in fundraising relationships.

is so intense. It takes so much time and heart and energy. And if you're doing it well, you're customizing your pitch for every investor. And, you know, that alone is a full-time job. And so I found myself having one hour meetings with investors. And 50 minutes of that time would be me trying to convince them that women cared about comfort at all.

that innovation was even needed. These attitudes like, well, Victoria's Secret's kind of got that down, don't they? I mean, this was many years ago. I think people have a different idea now. And we've seen really cool entrants like Skims and Knicks. And this industry is very much in disruption. So I think it would be a different conversation now for my particular industry. But I had so many of those conversations that were just not getting to the meat. And so what I did

was I gave investors homework. I said, before we meet, I need you to talk to at least five women, or you can have somebody, one of your associates do it, but I want you to ask them these questions. How do you feel about bra shopping? How do you feel about your bra at 6 p.m. on a Thursday? How many bras do you own? And how many do you wear?

And we all know the answers. I hate bra shopping. At 6 p.m. on a Thursday, I'm tearing that bra off. I have 10 to 20 bras and I wear one of them, the ugly comfy one. Right. Yeah. And so Alfred Lynn from Sequoia, I was very honored to meet with him. And he actually came in with a whole spreadsheet of responses. And he was already with me. He was like, OK, women are all having the same experience and it's a pretty bad experience. Let's talk.

And so remember that you can frame things. And I found that if an investor wasn't willing to do that, they probably weren't really interested in the conversation. I'm curious that you said you ended up with a male funder. Were you surprised by that? This investor is the best partner I could have ever wished for. But, you know, it was really interesting because his aha moment, and I think that's

Part of this is luck, right? I call it magic. But he had just been, I was talking about the ergonomics in my pitch, and he had just been to a black tie event where he had worn a tux with suspenders for like 10 hours. It was a super long event. I don't know how long it was. And he said, you know, I just wore these suspenders and by the end of the night, my neck and shoulders were aching. Is it like that? And I said, it's like that every day.

And he kind of, he said, that's awful. I mean, that has to change, you know? And so I also think this particular person is an exceptional human being, you know, in many ways. But he had had a relatable experience. If it's a woman's product, it's a male investor. You do have to think creatively of how to make it an understandable experience for them. You know, I should have asked this question at the very top of the interview, and I just didn't.

Evelyn and Bobbi. Where did it come from? So I wanted my brand to be grounded in real women. And I also, I love the idea of intergenerational connectedness. So Evelyn was my maternal grandmother. And she actually modeled lingerie in the 30s and was kind of a bold woman. She was a model and a starlet. So she represents beauty.

And then my aunt Bobby, my great aunt, taught me how to sew as a girl and was drilled into me the importance of detail. Like,

you were not allowed to have a loose thread anywhere. And she taught me how to pull the front side thread to the back and make it perfectly neat. And, you know, she would say, honey, it is the details of a garment that make it a fine garment. And I learned a lot from her that I've applied here. But Bobby was also an entrepreneur. She represents purpose. So the brand is Beauty and Purpose. And those two women are symbols of that for me.

I love that. I also love that this show, this interview, made me think of my Aunt Ida, who's not really my Aunt Ida. She's everybody's Aunt Ida. She truly was. My brother-in-law, Frank, had an Aunt Ida who was like his second mother. She basically helped raise him. And she was the bra saleswoman in Boston. Wow. The Boston Globe wrote an article about her.

her. I mean, she was just legendary. She hated that article. It was totally mortifying, I think, to her. But she was, yes, at a time when people hated bra shopping, they actually liked going to Ida. So as we wrap this up, I have two assignments for you.

The first is a front hook bra. I love a front hook bra and it's been years since Chantel stopped making theirs that I have been able to find a decent one. And second, and I'm sure you're doing this already, swimwear, please. On it. I just tried on the prototypes and they're gorgeous. Brie McKean, thank you so much. Where can people find more about you and about the company?

You can buy a bra right now at EvelynBobby.com, but we are also in Nordstrom, Von Maur, in many retail locations and boutiques across the U.S. So we're showing up everywhere, but EvelynBobby.com is the best place to shop today. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Jean.

If you love this episode, please give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. We always value your feedback. And if you want to keep the financial conversations going, join me for a deeper dive.

Her Money has two incredible programs, Finance Fix, which is designed to give you the ultimate money makeover, and Investing Fix, which is our investing club for women that meets biweekly on Zoom. With both programs, we are leveling the playing fields for women's financial confidence and power. I would love to see you there.

Her Money is produced by Haley Pascalides. Our music is provided by Video Helper and our show comes to you through Megaphone. Thanks for joining us and we'll talk soon.