Finding purpose in pain (original) (raw)

Sullivan’s clothing line, With Grace B. Bold, launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign Oct. 1, 2017, coinciding with the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Fewer than 36 percent of all Kickstarter campaigns get fully funded, but With Grace B. Bold beat those odds with a last-minute push across the $35,000 finish line. Sullivan, 25, is now hard at work to achieve her goal of shipping first garments by end of June.

“My mission is to help as many women as I can affected by breast cancer,” she wrote to her campaign’s supporters after its successful conclusion, “and now, with all of your support, I’m going to be able to help hundreds of women feel beautiful, confident and boldly sophisticated. This is all because of you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!”

The lightbulb moment

When she was a third-year fashion design student at DAAP, Sullivan found inspiration in her past — her mother’s battle with and recovery from breast cancer. When Sullivan asked her mom about what the worst part of that experience was, she was surprised by the answer she got. It wasn’t the chemo, the surgery or the radiation. It was the surgical drain.

“The thing that is so bothersome about it is that it’s so cumbersome,” Ann recalls. “We had to wind it up and figure out a place to attach it to my bathrobe. And clothing? There just weren’t that many options out there at that time. The whole experience is unnerving anyway, and then to have this piece of medical equipment attached to you — they didn’t warn me about that when I had the surgery.”

Sullivan began thinking about what it would be like to be in that predicament. She imagined having surgical drains attached while going out to a show, while returning to work, while running errands. “As a young woman coming into my own womanhood and knowing how I’d feel if I was in that position, I can’t even put into words the effect that has on me,” she says. “It’s every emotion — it’s anger and sadness and a fiery drive to fix this problem.”

It's every emotion — it's anger and sadness and a fiery drive to fix the problem.

–Megan Sullivan, DAAP alumna