Prairie Wear’s mission is to create a positive global impact, helping people feel better. How do we do that? We make the best bra in the world! Well, we believe so anyway.
Our sustainable, versatile bras, called Huggers, were designed with surgeons and technical design experts to be super comfortable, safe, and ready to use in surgical environments. Huggers are OEKO-TEX Std 100 certified as skin safe, and they’re not only better for your body, but because they last up to 10 times longer than most other bras, they’re also better for the planet, which is one of our core values.
Tell us about yourself?
My background is really varied, from social work to construction management, but my focus has always been to make processes better and help people. When the opportunity to create a product to help so many people feel better and get better presented itself, I felt the goosebumps rise on my arms and knew this was what I was meant to do. I’ve built Prairie Wear up from an idea, and I am so thankful for the opportunity to grow and share our Huggers, helping more people every day.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Focus on the amazing customers we already have! Ensure our loyal customers are feeling the #huggerLOVE and empower them to share that love with others.
What problem does your business solve?
A truly comfortable, safe, planet-friendly bra that you can wear 24/7 and stays feeling and smelling fresh!
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Make a positive global impact – help people! In the process of defining how Prairie Wear could best help people, we were challenged by a wonderful surgeon to improve on the stretchy, uncomfortable binder they put on breast cancer patients post-surgery. So the opportunity to ease the discomfort and support the recovery of so many women really was our inspiration. It has also enabled us to reach out beyond the breast cancer community into supporting people with lymphedema, large cup sizes, those needing high-impact support, and even those of us looking for a bra that we don’t want to rip off at the end of the day!
What is your magic sauce?
Two things: First, we focus on quality first, always on delivering the best possible product, and then we figure out how to make it accessible to everyone. And second, every single decision we make considers the impact on our planet – and we’re still improving on this all the time.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Get more Huggers out into the world! We’re really super well set up and ready for our next big leap in volume growth to get us to the big leagues. We’re working to get a million Huggers a year into the hands of people who’ll love them!
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
As I’m sure is true of many businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic was a huge challenge to us. Having started in a medical niche, the rapid shutdowns of all medical facilities were a real challenge for us but also for our medical community, who still needed to be able to serve and support patients. We shifted our emphasis to talking to the end consumer as well as providing services to our medical community to support their patients remotely. As a result, we saw amazing growth that has continued even as our medical niche picked up again. We are super grateful for the opportunity that was inside that challenge to support our community.
How can people get involved?
If you’re looking for a really great compression bra that is better for your body AND better for the planet, then head over to www.prairiewear.com and shop, become a referring Med Pro or sign up as a Wholesaler!