From Grief to Growth: Building a Brand That Celebrates Height

After losing her grandmother, Brynn O’Connell channelled her grief into creating Dauntless - a hosiery brand designed to finally fit tall women. Drawing on her background in data science, Brynn rebuilt the traditional sizing system to celebrate real bodies and redefine what comfort looks like.

In this episode of Lemonade Leaders, Brynn shares how loss inspired her to start again, the lessons she’s learned about resilience and self-acceptance, and why there’s never a perfect time to turn an idea into reality.

Find Brynn chatting on Instagram, and you can find more about Dauntless on their website and Instagram.

Find us on TikTok and Instagram @lemonadeleaders

Transcript

Riannon: 0:00

Welcome to Lemonade Leaders, the podcast about conversations that do good and feel good. I'm your host, Riannon Palmer, founder of Lem-uhn, a feelgood PR agency for brands that care. Each episode, I'll be chatting to brilliant people who've turned life's lemons into something meaningful. Today I'm joined by Brynn O'Connell, the founder of Dauntless, a hosiery brand built to finally give tall people types that actually fit, Frustrated by the lack of quality and inclusivity in traditional hosiery. Brynn used her background in data science to reimagine the design process and even create a sizing tool to help customers find their perfect fit. Her journey hasn't been straightforward with full starts, moments of doubt, and the challenge of building a business while grieving the loss of her grandmother. but Brenda has channeled those experiences into Dauntless, a brand that pays tribute to the strong women in her life and the resilience they taught her. Hi, Brent. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me.

Brynn: 1:00

Happy to be here.

Riannon: 1:02

it sounds like you've had a few lemon moments. I know the lemon moment that led you to start Dauntless was your own experience with finding it really difficult to find types that actually fit, which is a problem that I think most people have had themselves.

Brynn: 1:16

Yeah. it's actually a much bigger problem than just tall people, but I needed to start with, well, myself because it's a problem. It's a business born out of a problem I face directly, and there's nothing really on the market to, to help us right now with that.

Riannon: 1:31

and why do you think that it is such a big problem and why hasn't the the fashion industry been looking to find solutions before?

Brynn: 1:39

That's a great question. When I started telling people about what I was doing with Dauntless, I was repeatedly asked, why has nobody done this before? And at the start, I didn't have a great answer to that question, but after all of the false starts I've had getting to this point, I now do basically, it comes down to how. The manufacturing process is set up. Traditionally, tights are designed using height and weight to determine fit, but that actually is a really poor premise for understanding body shapes. It's BMI, if you're familiar with that term. It's essentially that premise, and so it turns out that height and weight are only correlated about 22% of the time. And if you even go back a bit further, the measure of BMI was developed off of, studies of men. And most of the people that do wear hosiery are not always men. So it's a bad premise and I got to thinking there has got to be a better way to do this. So I then developed a new premise using, waist circumference and hip circumference. Two measures that are, correlated about 92% of the time and much more gender neutral and inclusive, therefore. You can really tell

Riannon: 2:48

that your data science background as well has gone into the thinking.

Brynn: 2:51

Yeah, it's it's a funny sort of background that I've got, actually had a bit of a foot in fashion, if you will, from a really early age. I did a bit of modeling as a teenager and I started working, as a stylist throughout high school and then year. I ended up going into tech with my first business, which was completely different area. And then after I ended up leaving that business, it was quite a shock that nobody wanted to hire a 25-year-old, you know, former founder. So I was back to styling and living in the US at the time and I was, I found that all of the people I was helping with styling also had hosiery issues. Most of the people were going through big life changes, menopause, postpartum, or just weight fluctuations. And it really brought home to me how this is not only a technical problem, but it's also, quite an emotional one. It's quite psychological too, and I felt we really needed to do something differently. So that's how my weird background has kind of come together to make, I guess dauntless happen. Yeah.

Riannon: 3:54

But you've used like all the parts of your experience into one business and that's always the best businesses is when you've been able to use everything that you know. So it's really cool to hear. And how did name come around as well? Dogless?

Brynn: 4:05

Yeah, that's a really funny question. So, I was back in the US at the time and my mom had come up to help me care for my grandmother. I was taking on a caring role at the, this sort of, strange kind of pivot point of my life. I dunno what I'm doing next. And so I thought to myself, I wanna do this hosiery thing. I want to actually give this a proper go. My mom and I were on a walk and we started brainstorming ideas and I actually have a note of some of the ideas that we had for the name and they're really bad. Dauntless is definitely the best story and I have to give her the credit for it. She thought, what about, something about confidence when we were looking up, synonyms and everything. So the idea came from her, but then the official sign off came from my grandmother. She was like, yeah, go for that stamp of approval.

Riannon: 4:53

So, oh, amazing. And, and how was that, obviously that you mentioned that your grandma wasn't well at the time and you were caring for her while still building this business. And how do you think that that process of looking after someone while starting a new business, how do you think it impacted how the business has gone forward?

Brynn: 5:09

That's a really interesting question because I think I've only recently realized how much it has impacted my journey with Dauntless. I have quite, I still talk about her in the present tense sometimes, and I don't think that's something I actually wanna lose. I'm quite happy to keep, keep that going, but I had. I have quite a close relationship with her. She was like a bonus parent to me. I actually spent a lot of time with her as a child because my mom was working in, a corporate setting and so was my dad. And so childcare is a nightmare, particularly in the us which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to. So she and I had a really close bond when I moved back. I didn't realize that she was sick. I thought we were just gonna be, you know, it was gonna be great. But then, yeah, basically we found out quite suddenly and quite quickly that she had terminal lung cancer. and it was a very scary moment, having to actually care for this person so quickly. who'd spent most of her, well, most of my life, I'd seen her as a carer. For me, having that dynamic change very suddenly was shocking. And so I think. When I, what I was going through is obviously a very intense experience and I wanted to find some bit of stability and Dauntless acted like that for me. But then after her passing, I think it became, I, I couldn't quite realize how much was going into it, what was about the grief and what was about the business. And the lions got quite quite blurred. So yeah, it, it can cloud judgment in a way, but I think it also informs why this is so important. Because the vision of Dauntless is so connected to her.

Riannon: 6:48

Yeah. I think more, the more we have these lived experiences, which are really obviously horrible at the time, they do build us into the people that we are today and inspire different ideas for businesses or life, and we grow so much from that.

Brynn: 7:00

I think that's what's interesting as well about all founders, because I don't think there's an ideal time to set up a business. Never think there's a perfect time. They say it, there's never a perfect time to have children. Well, I think the same is true with, with setting up a business. I mean, if your

Riannon: 7:16

business is a, a baby to lots of people either way.

Brynn: 7:19

Yeah. And so I think there was a period, maybe a couple months ago where I was like, oh, I should have waited to, to start Dauntless. I, you know, I was, I was foolish. I didn't think clearly. Looking back, it's, it's, no, this was very important to me then it's even more important to me now. And yeah, maybe I wouldn't have made some of the choices I've made with the early sort of, you know, business, laying the foundation. Like maybe I could have laid the foundation differently, but I'm sure I still would've made mistakes. And because the two are connected, I needed to learn to not be hard on myself for those mistakes. And I think that's actually quite a universal truth with entrepreneurship. Yeah. We're never, there's never the ideal time.

Riannon: 8:02

Yeah, definitely. And I think there's, there's quite often, there's two types of entrepreneurs. There's the ones that just jump into it and learn from the mistakes. And there's those people that wait a long time to try and make something perfect and nothing is ever gonna be perfect. Um, I mean, I've made lots of mistakes along the way, but gradually things improve and you learn from them as well.

Brynn: 8:20

That's entirely it. I think I had this idea that, oh, I needed, I should have waited until I was ready emotionally to do this. But it's better to make something exist first, and then I can make it perfect. And for me, that's making the, the tights for not just tall people, but for every person. But I have to start somewhere. And that's, I think that's the right way to honor her as well. I think about my grandmother and she truly is. You know, one of the most resilient people I've ever met. But she also didn't get to live a lot of her dreams out, and I feel that it's an immense privilege. I have to chase this Dauntless dream, if you will. Yeah.

Riannon: 8:56

I think lots of women of that generation, it was a different time and perhaps they didn't get to fulfill their ambitions and career dreams and lots of different other passions. So it is really nice that some of us today with progress, obviously there's still a lot to do, but we can do more of that stuff. So it's really empowering and I'm sure should be, yeah, very happy with everything that's going. And now that it's finally kind of coming to fruition and you're launching really soon, it's such an exciting time. But I be those. Like I finally got here to where there's gonna be a product

Brynn: 9:28

entirely. I think there's been, it's been a long journey, like going to the false starts. I didn't realize this when I started Dauntless, but it is actually difficult to get people to do something that hasn't been done before. And I definitely fall into that category of entrepreneur that's yeah, let's just go, go, go, go, go. I dunno how much is me versus the grief, but I don't think it actually matters. I think I probably always would be like, go, go, go, go, go. It took me a while to find the right manufacturer and to find people that were willing to buy into the vision because they had to try something different. I also didn't have the traditional background. I'm not a fashion designer by trade. I'm not a real material scientist by trade, but I had this fantastic model and it all worked out on paper, so it took a bit of time to get that to translate into the real life. Then last Friday I ended up wearing my tights out and it was the most incredible feeling because truly they are the best tights I've ever worn. So it's a wonderful feeling to know, okay. All of that iteration and the the false starts and the crying and the mental breakdowns, it is actually all happening for a reason now. Yeah.

Riannon: 10:36

Well, that's so exciting. And what was it, what was it like? Where did you go to wear them for the first time? Was it a big occasion or was it just like pop to the shops?

Brynn: 10:44

Do you know what? I am gonna call it a Vic occasion. I didn't know this existed, but it's absolutely fabulous and I can't wait to learn about more communities like this. I discovered that there is a tall people club based in London. There's a tall person's club that's been running for about 30 years and I have a regular meetup and so I decided I'm gonna go to the tall person club and also because it's really lovely to meet other tall women too. It was quite funny though, when I walked into the pub that it was being hosted at, I was kind of looking around and I, I saw some groups of taller people, but there were people that were, you know, not that tall as well in the group. And I thought, oh, it'd be so easy to find a group of strangers that, or all tall. No, that's not the case. And I was like, oh, do I go up and start asking people? Are you with the tall people? But it turns out they were just in this other side room. So thank goodness I didn't do that.

Riannon: 11:37

I've had that before. I went to, I just joined a gym and they were having this Christmas party. Yeah. And I went to the Christmas party and I was just going up to groups and saying, are you here for the Christmas party? I went up to one Tattoo studios Christmas party, and I probably should have guessed they were like all covered in tattoos and they were in a psycho as well.

Brynn: 11:56

That's so funny. Yeah, it's a funny experience in London when you, when you walk up to people and you know you're trying to find your kind of group, but You can't. Exactly.

Riannon: 12:05

Yeah. It's always a good lesson as well. I think it's good practice to speak to strangers sometimes, 'cause we don't do it enough these days.

Brynn: 12:12

I, I actually, exactly. I thought, do you know what? I need to walk in there and feel comfortable and confident. 'cause that is the whole point of the brand. Like, this is a good moment for me to test out my own ethos. That if I'm feeling comfortable, I'll feel confident. And I thought back to, you know, when I was 18, when I first moved to London, I don't know if I would've done that. I don't think I would've. Yeah, neither. Sure. Some of its maturity, growth, age, wisdom, but also I think it's, You know, you develop a sense of self and you can do the scary things that are also wonderful opportunities, and there's a lot of them in a place like London.

Riannon: 12:46

Yeah, definitely. And do you think that perceptions in society has changed towards tall people? Especially tall women? It feels like for me, I'm, unfortunately, I'm not a tall person, but it feels like for me, when I was growing up to be like a tall woman, it was like, oh my God, you're never gonna find a partner. You're tall. And then it feels like there's been more of an embracing, and everyone is not everyone, to be honest. It's maybe I'm in a sphere where everyone is more accepting, you know? And society feels like it's proud of tall people and tall women, and they're kind of praised more than it used to be.

Brynn: 13:17

I think that's such a great question. The short answer is yes, but it's It's complicated. It's nuanced. Of course. I think that we're writing the tailwinds of a broader sort of discourse about body acceptance, body positivity, body neutrality, just better understanding of body image, which is fantastic. And then I also think that as women take up more space, we're okay with being taller and taking up like physical space as well. I think about how, a lot of tall people I met, they were sharing experiences of, you know, shrinking down and not wearing heels. And even some of the women were like, oh my gosh, you wear heels at this, at this meetup? And that was wonderful. But yeah, I actually made a conscious decision when I was about 20 that I was. Every first date I went on, I was gonna wear heels unless it was like completely inappropriate, like muck out horses. No, it became such a good filter for me because if people were strange about my height, it's like, well, if you're not okay with me being tall, I mean I'm, I'm definitely not the person for you. But also you probably weren't align on values as well. Definitely. So whether people are tall or not, I think. Having that courage to take up space if you are looking for a partner too, is, is always a good thing to do. 'cause you, we all deserve to take up space with, particularly in a romantic setting.

Riannon: 14:36

Yeah, definitely. And I think everyone has got their own thing that maybe is not like societal beauty standards or acceptable and everything. So it's all about having that confidence from within, which like, I think you said you get as you get older, unfortunately when you're younger you're a little bit more self-conscious about stuff. But yeah, you realize as you get older it really doesn't matter. And the people that you do care about, they won't care about it. And the people that care about it aren't the people that you wanna hang around with.

Brynn: 15:00

That's the thing as well about beauty standards and body image regardless of gender too. There's always something we don't have that is desirable and so you can drag yourself absolutely crazy trying to be everything all at once, but we never will. And if we were everything all at once, there would still be something that isn't fair. So I think it's about having an awareness of, of that, exclusionary discourse and choosing to exclude yourself from it. It's something I fall into a lot, don't get me wrong, you know, I'm planning a wedding right now as well, and there's a whole other kettle of fish around body image stuff, you know, with brides in the wedding industry, et cetera. But choosing to say, when, when that stop comes in, I say, Nope, I'm not gonna go there. I'm, I'm gonna be here in the body that I'm in and have some joy. I think joy is really important actually, when it comes to body image. Yeah.

Riannon: 15:52

Yeah, definitely. And I love how you are just about to launch a brand and you're also planning a wedding just to, you know, add something else to the mix.

Brynn: 15:59

I know. I was like, let's just do it all at once. It'll be perfect. No, I, it is, I'm also calling it joyful chaos, because especially with wedding planning, it's, it's, I feel good about things. I then panic, there's a big burst of productivity, and then I feel good and the cycle repeats. So I don't think that's actually dissimilar from entrepreneurship as well. Yeah, it's probably a similar cycle. Yeah.

Riannon: 16:21

Yeah, there's always something new that's gonna be launching or you're gonna be doing, so you may as well do it all at once

Brynn: 16:26

entirely. And that goes back to my point about there's no good time. Like there's no ideal time I think, for any of these big, big life changes. But it's having the courage to acknowledge that it's gonna be chaotic and just going for it, and being kind to yourself when you do feel overwhelmed. I think that's pretty important too.

Riannon: 16:43

Yeah, definitely. It was interesting what you were saying earlier as well about the types have been, previously, measured on, like a male body and I hadn't kind of considered how different people's bodies. look, I have been trying to find a new pair of jeans recently and I have tried on a few different pairs of jeans and they don't fit my legs, but they then, for my waist and it's that annoying thing and I've actually, it's on my list to try and go to Abercrombie because I hear they have a curve range. So it's interesting. I swear by it. It's good. It's interesting to hear then these innovations and how things are slowly considering how people's bodies are different.

Brynn: 17:16

Yeah, entirely. Actually, we use denim as part of the size tool that I developed. Sizing and hosiery is chaotic 'cause you're supposed to find yourself in a little box. But actually 34% of women, myself included, won't find their little box. Like I don't have the exact weight and height. Matchup. And also it's not particularly healthy for everyone to be worrying about their weight in, in such a way. Mm. You know, there's, it can be quite a triggering experience. So I didn't want that, I didn't wanna inherit that legacy, and I didn't want that to be, it wasn't aligned with the brand. So I decided to develop this tool where we take either denim, your, your preferred denim brand and size, or your dress size to, to match you with our types. And instead of small, medium, or large. You get matched with a gender neutral name. That's how we do sizing. So there's Jude, Andy, Finn, and Stevie. Those are our sizes for the tall people, and we'll have more sizes, obviously when I expand to shorter bodies as well. So it was really important to me to make it clear, less confusing, and also make it more body neutral or body positive to have a, an informed tool there from a, a psychological and emotional perspective too.

Riannon: 18:28

Yeah, that's really important. I think it's so interesting the generation that we grew up in, whereas the early naughties where it was all about wearing scales. Like my mom, she would always be thinking about diets and stuff, but that was always on the TV and, and it's kind of ingrained in our. When we were growing up and I think I'm really good. I don't have a weighing skills now and I've gotta a kind of a point where you just know if you feel good and everything. But it's so interesting that generational impact and I think now things are changing. Hopefully for this generation of parents, people are being bo up more about kind of just you should be kind and feel good about yourself and it doesn't matter what weight you're.

Brynn: 19:04

Entirely. Sometimes I get unfairly frustrated with my fiance 'cause he doesn't know, the number of calories and a certain thing. But because I am from that generation where we were fed, skinny discourse, it's very difficult to break out of that. So I think we have to find tools that work for us, and that's been my own personal journey that does inform how I approach. Thoughtless as well. I'm also completely open to the fact that what works for me might not work for other people. And so I want to understand how other people have found a better way forward with, the challenges that our generation, and our parents generation too, faced.

Riannon: 19:42

And do you think that are other areas in clothing and in fashion, like with tights or for example, we were saying with like jeans fitting, well that still need to be evolved and to take a look at.

Brynn: 19:54

Absolutely. I think denim is a, is top of my list 'cause I have a similar issue. And also because it is very difficult to find denim that is tall enough for long enough for women. In high school I had little, My first kind of boyfriend that I was speaking with or chatting with, he was I think six foot four. And I was six foot, and I, I made a comment about, oh yeah, it must be hard for you to find jeans as well. not really. They're, they're around. I, I thought to myself, this sucks. This is not fair. And so there's definitely a lot of work to be done there, but I also think around the design process as well. There's been some great improvements in fabric composition as well to help people find denim that moves with them. So that's probably my biggest pain point. There's an excellent brand. If I can give a little shout out to the female, the female archetypes they create. Okay. A denim that actually will, it's adjustable, but in an incredibly beautiful and classic way. So I'm a massive fan of what they're doing. I think that's definitely the way forward and it makes me really excited that brands are thinking about. Size inclusivity from a sustainability perspective as well. So

Riannon: 21:04

yeah, I think it's also the, the rise of female founders has really helped 'cause it's different lived experiences and I think that it's probably a correlation between there's been more female founders and more inclusivity

Brynn: 21:15

entirely, and I think it's. Crazy that we've been blocked out from this because even from the most rational perspective, women have so much power in the economy as consumers that we know our target customers. When we form consumer brands or you know, obviously not consumer brands as well, like we know we're able to totally understand our ideal customer so well because oftentimes we are, we are that person.

Riannon: 21:42

Yeah, it's really important. We've also just started working with an inclusive fashion brand called In Totem. So they're a disability brand, and it's so interesting to see, kind of that lived experiences as well as needed for, disabled people like wheelchairs, which is something that if you don't live in a wheelchair or you haven't got someone close to you that has a wheelchair, you don't really think about it. But obviously so many bits of fashion aren't suitable for wheelchairs that need to be adapted.

Brynn: 22:05

Entirely, I think. Yeah. I'm wondering if I came across that Instagram because it's been very exciting to, I've had a lot of that on my Dauntless Instagram feed. It's so lovely. 'cause my Dauntless Instagram feed is the most wholesome place to spend time. 'cause it's, it's just wonderful, inclusive fashion people that are doing really amazing, innovative things. So it's a lovely place to have a little, a little doom scroll if I need to have you up.

Riannon: 22:28

Yeah, one of my friends once said that, yeah, you can, because your explore pages about what you look at and you click it exactly so you can actually train it to be nice stuff that's happy rather than like comparisons to other people or celebrities. And it's really interesting and great that you've been able to curate such a nice page

Brynn: 22:46

entirely. Yeah, it's so much nicer than my personal Instagram, which has the legacy of, you know, not as nice body image feeling. So yeah, much, much happier place at don't list.

Riannon: 22:58

Mine is, mine, I'm just a lover transformation. So it'll be like people that have had like hair transplants or like skin things or different things. 'cause I always wanna see the after, so I click on it. So now mine's just full of those types of things.

Brynn: 23:11

I think one of the funniest experiences I had, speaking of transformations, when I went to visit my manufacturer in, they're based out of Turkey. I was inundated with ads for procedures because I had seize, you know, British, well, I have a, I'm not British, but I have a British number. Yeah. In Turkey. She must be wanting to change everything about herself. Let's just give her all the ads. It's like, that's not really that kind.

Riannon: 23:36

Yeah, it's so crazy. Like the perception of Turkey has changed so much since that's kind of become one of the things it's been known for. But obviously there's a lot of amazing cultural stuff going on there too,

Brynn: 23:46

entirely. Oh my gosh. It was incredible to spend the time I did spend in Istanbul. We had a wonderful time. I was able to bring my fiance along and he attended all the meetings and took notes with me, which is fantastic. But yeah, it, it truly is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. It's so. it's so stunning. It's massive. It's wonderful place to visit.

Riannon: 24:06

Definitely. I need to book a trick back. Yeah, exactly. And you have your launch coming up now, in a week's time, which is so exciting. So what is your kind of next steps, uh, with Dauntless?

Brynn: 24:18

Next steps is, honestly getting the product out there. I have tested it within my community that is pretty close to me and got, I've had some feedback from beyond that as well, but I just, I want people to, to really see the product. I love it when people actually feel the product too, 'cause they're always so impressed by how soft it is. So that's just the next step is making sure people can actually see it and touch it and, and understand. What's behind this year long journey of making these types, that's so

Riannon: 24:49

exciting. And obviously you've had a big journey since you started to kind of, even just with the the inception idea. If there was someone who was in a similar position, maybe they've gone through some grief recently and they're kind of wanting to change something in their life, whether it start a business or something else, what advice would you offer to them?

Brynn: 25:06

I would tell them to. Do whatever they feel they need to do today. Don't worry about tomorrow. Even if it is something like starting a business, do what feels right today. It's having the courage to listen to yourself, because I think that can be a very scary thing to do when you're grieving whatever it is. Uh, it could be a or just going through any sort of, maybe it's not grieving a person. Maybe it's you lost your job or something. Just listening to what you need in the next 10 minutes. Then you can bump it up to an hour, then a day ba honestly, baby steps. Yeah.

Riannon: 25:44

Yeah. I think that's good advice for anyone, especially just, especially we're going into that kind of autonomal season and the weather's changing, and sometimes it can be hard to find motivation that if you just take one step at a time and there's small actions, they do lead to kind of change in the long run as well.

Brynn: 25:57

Entirely. I think changes is lots of small moments building upon each other. It's the accumulation of all those small moments. So yeah, enjoy the small moments and just be kind to yourself as often as you can. And where can people find more about you or Dauntless if they wanna hear more? Now, if. Yes, so Dauntless is the Instagram is Go Dauntless. We have our website, which is also the same, it's go dauntless.com and then my Instagram is Brynn Yapps. So my name and then Yaps. 'cause I like to yap there. So I love that. Well thank you so much Brynn. It was so lovely to catch up with you. So lovely to be here, so nice to chat. Thank you so much.

Riannon: 26:40

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