FRAN DUNAWAY AND NAOMI GONZALEZ
Co-Founders, CEO and COO, TomboyX
Shopping for clothing can be tough if you’re not traditionally feminine and are more attracted to menswear style. Fran Dunaway and Naomi Gonzalez recognized this problem and created TomboyX to solve it. The former video producer (Dunaway) and sports massage therapist (Gonzalez) didn’t plan to, as Dunaway says, “create complete and total upheaval in our lives and our careers. We just had this idea and kept moving forward on it. We would go shopping and talk to friends and kept hearing the same frustrations about the lack of options for women who would rather shop in the menswear department but couldn’t because of the fit. One day, Naomi asked me, ‘How hard can it be to start a clothing line?’ We’re both of the fixer mentality, so off we went.” Today, they ship their products—which also include accessories like jewelry and belts—to 29 countries, and are receiving positive feedback, says Dunaway. “‘Finally!’ ‘Where have you been all my life?’ That’s the kind of response we are getting…Our brand resonates with who [our customers] are at their core. And every single day we are inspired to persevere because of their support.”
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