Startup aims to expand fashion inclusivity with downloadable garments

by Bridget Hagen

Ever since their first job at a shoe store, Bren Bodin, MBA ’26 knew they wanted to start a fashion company.

“For me, it was life-changing to learn how to help people transform, not necessarily into something they’re not, but helping them discover other, deeper parts of themselves,” Bodin said. “I discovered that in fashion, you can not only help others do that but also grow a true business.”

Bodin spent the summer working toward that dream as a participant in the Johnson Summer Startup Accelerator (JSSA) at the SC Johnson College of Business. With support from JSSA and a $10,000 stipend from the Professor Vrinda Kadiyali Student Entrepreneur Fund, Bodin is building FYBRE, a startup that aims to introduce a paradigm shift in the fashion industry through downloadable garments.

Before becoming an MBA student, Bodin intentionally explored different sides of the industry in NYC. They completed eight internships and freelance roles in fashion marketing, merchandising, operations, retail, editorial, and more. After graduating, they held roles at Tiffany & Co., PwC, and FARFETCH leading regional and global digital strategies, all in preparation for launching their own venture someday.

“I wanted to build what I call ‘CEO Brain,’” Bodin said. “I wanted to develop a viewpoint that enabled me to see the implications of every action I made — not just impacts to other business units but also in the lives and cultures of others.”

FYBRE, an internet of things (IoT) fashion startup, pairs material science and software to create color-changing and shape-shifting garments that physically transform in response to downloaded clothing designs rather than having to reproduce each item. Bodin aims for this new technology to not only revolutionize the industry but to solve several systemic issues they noticed during decades working in fashion.

“The fashion industry, as glamorous as it is, has problems,” Bodin said. “It’s an industry where the main goal is to create a dream or a vision that, unfortunately, very few people get to experience. It also comes at a cost too detrimental to the environment.”

Bodin identified sampling as a root cause of fashion’s lack of democratization, both for customers and for emerging fashion brands. Currently, designers must create five to 10 rounds of samples per garment to fine-tune their product before moving forward with a full manufacturing run. Because the process is prohibitively expensive for new brands — the sampling process for just one design can cost as much as $4,000 — brands typically create clothing in limited, standardized looks and sizes.

“It results in ill-fitting clothing and a lack of size inclusivity, plus a large, capital-intensive hurdle for any person who is starting a fashion brand,” Bodin said. “It also leads into lots of excess inventory because current production processes are limited in their ability to fit each end-customer. Though, this is beyond size inclusion. These conditions set an industry dynamic where designers survive by who is best funded, not most beloved.”

Bodin calls these challenges “the sample crisis.” Customers struggle to find clothing that fits their style and size while designers struggle to create and scale profitably. The status quo favors the top luxury brands, which don’t include majority of customers outside of bags and accessories.

FYBRE addresses the sampling crisis by reducing the costs and obstacles designers and manufacturers face to create and scale for “any person, any size, any style,” echoing Cornell’s founding principle of “any person … any study.” Bodin is focused on laying the foundation for the fashion industry to not only better support existing customer but to expand its capability to create inclusively.

“In the beginning of my career, I thought I was going to be able to solve these inclusivity and accessibility issues when I became more senior,” Bodin said. “However, I later realized the tools we had available were never meant to push back on the status quo. Now, we’re developing the tools to create that change. This isn’t just a startup — it’s a call to action. We’re rethinking the industry from the ground up and setting the blueprint of what an equitable ecosystem looks like.”

Before JSSA, Bodin interviewed over 100 fashion customers to refine their idea, and this summer they have focused on gaining a stronger understanding of designer and manufacturer pain points as well. The Kadiyali funding helped them establish a global headquarters, develop their software prototype, and establish FYBRE as a company.

Bodin, along with 28 other companies in this year’s JSSA cohort, pitched their startup at JSSA Demo Day in New York City on August 8. They now plan to conduct an initial fundraising round to grow and scale FYBRE.