Mary Cayten Brakefield is the co-founder of Brakefields, a mother/daughter founded fashion label that brings joyful comfort to women of all ages, sizes, and abilities. Designed with care in Nashville and produced on demand in Phoenix, Arizona, garments from Brakefields are available in sizes XXXS-6X with multiple hem lengths and optional accessibility adaptations. With elevated functionality at the core of the brand, each piece is created to ensure women of all bodies and lifestyles have a closet that equips them, not restricts them, for all the opportunities their day holds.
As a member of UT’s swim team, Brakefield’s passion for functional design largely originated from her time in VOLeaders, a leadership program for student-athletes at UT that exposed her to the frustrations of many disabled athletes she met. Soon after, the effects of a genetic condition changed her own ability levels which further intensified her passion for accessible products.
After beginning to explore adaptive design, Brakefield realized that the same approach resulted in better designed clothes for a multitude of women who have been historically frustrated by the garments available to them, such as postpartum moms, those feeling the effects of growing older, and simply particularly tall or short women. This realization inspired a brand that takes a different approach to inclusion where all needs are considered and addressed without creating more separation between groups in the final shopping experience. The education Brakefield received through UT’s retail and consumer sciences program, coupled with a master’s in marketing from Vanderbilt University, helped turn her desire for a more inclusive world into a platform for change to help make that desire a reality.
