Undergarments are such a common part of everyday apparel that most people don't give them a lot of thought wash them, wear them, and toss them out when they're tattered.

But imagine you're not able to slip into underwear on a daily basis because of physical limitations. That's the situation many women face who are suffering from severe arthritis or are disabled after a stroke or injury. Working the clasps on a bra suddenly becomes a two-person activity, or one completely abandoned out of frustration, leaving the disabled individual feeling less and less like a normal person. Sisters Sarah Lorenz and Phyllis Keith have come up with a compassionate solution: the Sarah Bra. A website (www.wearease.com) touting the bra reads:What (people) don't realize is that so much of healing after an illness is more than simply healing the injury.

Along with balance, body awareness and visual perceptual skills, being able to dress one's self and re-enter the world is vital for building self-confidence and avoiding severe depression. Lorenz and Keith grew up on a King Hill, Idaho farm, where if one could not create it, sew it or grow it, one didn't need it.

It took both of them to make a bra. Without one, we wouldn't have the idea and without the other, we wouldn't have the product, said Keith, who lives in Boise.

The idea started with Lorenz, who works as an occupational therapist for VNA Home Health Care Services-Providence Health Care in Spokane.

I was motivated to create the bra because there was nothing available for women to wear after a stroke or injury where they had only the use of one arm or limited use of their arms, said Lorenz.

The therapist said she was constantly adapting the women's underclothes to accommodate their infirmity; but after they were out of her care, the patients could not find replacement apparel.

Often, Lorenz would create a makeshift bra just for one individual. It was her sister a business and marketing executive, formerly with Hewlett-Packard and Boise Cascade who provided the financing and expertise to launch a business and create an entire line of bras that were accessible in the marketplace for the hundreds of women who need them. I told her I thought it would be great to provide her solutions for more than one person at a time, and that could be the basis for our business, Keith said.

Two years passed and, during that time, Lorenz developed about 100 prototypes. Sarah would sew a bra and mail it to me. I would wear it and send it back with changes, Keith said. It was a very long and involved process, said Lorenz. Phyllis would give me feedback we sent a lot of stuff back and forth.

Finally, in 2002, the women received their first patent, and the bras went to market in 2003. But more trial-and-error ensued. From customer and market feedback, we went back to the design table to remake the bra, said Keith. Although women who needed it were happy with its functionality, women who sold the bra wanted it to be prettier. The bra was reintroduced in May of this year and named the Sarah Bra because the name has a romantic and feminine sound and makes a great story since the woman who invented it is also Sarah,' said Keith.

The bra is manufactured in Los Angeles. Finding manufacturers, pattern makers, cutters and notions folks is, according to Keith, a networking thing, and a process where you pursue what you don't know.

The bra has become available in stores throughout the U.S. including Brownfield's in Boise only since spring.

Qualities that distinguish it from ordinary bras include the fact that a woman puts it on over her head like a camisole or T-shirt and then cinches it to fit. The bra varies in many ways from a mastectomy bra, but it has been updated with pockets to accommodate a prosthesis, said Keith.

A Caldwell woman, Shauna Leavitt-Dugan, who works with mentally handicapped people, started using the Sarah Bra following a work-related injury two years ago. A client's violent movements severely hurt her shoulder, Leavitt-Dugan said. She later had surgery but her shoulder remained damaged and she is incapable of raising her right arm. Her husband had to help her dress, and regular bras were painful to put on and uncomfortable to wear.

The Sarah Bra helped me because I can actually have the strap on top without the pain, and I can put it on and take it off myself, she said.

The bras sell for $60 to $70 each. Keith and Lorenz were notified in September that they have received a Canadian patent. A European patent is pending.

The sisters are working diligently to market the bra nationally and globally. There's a huge population who could use our bra, said Keith. And there's nothing else like it.
2005 Idaho Business Review. All rights reserved. Originally published in Idaho Business Review, October 10, 2005