about

Dare Heart

At Dare Heart we’ve redesigned cotton comfort underwear for women in a range of sizes and styles. As a budding startup based out of Portland (OR), we believe in keeping our footprint small by sourcing fabric and production on the West Coast, bringing you well-made garments that reflect our credo.

Look around you. Nature didn’t create women in just one size and shape. At Dare Heart we embrace these differences. Our line of soft cotton undergarments are the better fit for how you’re shaped, what you value, and how you live. Three distinct rises comprise our styles: low, medium and high. Giving you the option to find your favorite fit.

These are the undies women have hoped for. Our comfortable fit, creative prints, and sophisticated colorways in natural fibers, are something to adore. Step into them, day or night, for the ultimate in comfort. 

We believe that our strength is inside us.  When you feel comfortable, you feel confident. We dare women to hold onto the differences that make us real, powerful, and uniquely wonderful. Nurture yourself from the inside out with Dare Heart soft and steadfast underthings.

Oh, and … we <3 cats.

founder

Kim Campbell

Over five decades Kim has been engaging in the world as a daughter, sister, mother, partner, and photographer. She is now breathing life into this new creative venture, distilling her knowledge from decades of sewing with her mother and entrepreneurship. Believing we should all be shaping our lives by seizing our opportunities, she decided to start a new company at fifty.

Creating boutique portraits at Campbell Salgado Studio helped her grasp the depths of societal expectations and how they impact women’s self-esteem and confidence. Her antidote is to create a clothing brand that embraces women as they are, in their beautiful bodies that help them move through the world and house their dreams and soul. By offering a product that lifts women up, she hopes Dare Heart inspires individuals to be courageous in big and small ways. Dare Heart will resonate with women who value personal authenticity over societal expectations.

Kim Campbell

Her story

landing on the planet

in portland, or

This child of love enters a world primed for women's liberation. A freckle-faced girl spends her days playing make believe, dressing up, making blanket forts, helping bake cakes, chasing butterflies, and taking a stand when needed against her older brothers. With just one girl in her brood, her mother adorns her daughter with bespoke clothing, seeding the love of fashion to the next generation.

coming of age

in the country

Life in the Columbia River Gorge was analog. Long phone calls on marigold rotary phones, whispered in a closet for privacy. Communing with nature through hikes and pet raccoons. Pauses in the school year thanks to the wintry weather blanketing window panes with filigreed ice. Cups of cocoa by a wood fire. As this girl moves to womanhood, her mother gives her a sewing machine. A gesture that would take another decade to be appreciated.

this is the decade

of love and loss

She falls deeply in love at the tender age of 23 with a Mexican sculptor who shares her values of kindness and feminism. They cement their life’s journey in vows penned in a taverna on the Greek isle of Kimolos. A coming together also brings a coming apart, as this young woman becomes motherless at 27. A career as an Art Therapist quietly disappears as a photographer emerges. The tail end of the 1990s brings her a teenaged daughter, who rejoins her father in Oregon. Creative hustle is Kim’s path forward.

welcome to

motherhood

The century rollover produces a baby boy, expanding and contracting the family anew. Gardening, painting, and remodeling restores a distressed veneer in the family’s first home. Legos, pancakes, and storytime mark the next ten years on repeat. The bustle of work and home life is real. Self-care is on the back burner, but time to think and dream is still held dear.

the decade to

rebuild and build

Recovery from the tailspin of the Great Recession. New creative ventures for the mind and heart include building a body of fine art photography. She takes thousands of portraits of her Portland community at her studio. Time spent with friends and family is cherished and rejuvenating. Travel begins in earnest and brings precious memories of new vistas, and shared experiences.

time for

new dreams

Kids are mostly self-sufficient in all the right ways. Manifesting a life imagined is the next phase. Changing lanes takes focus, sacrifice, persistence, humility, and hundreds of tiny steps to get from here to there. Savoring the journey as much as the destination, from photographer to apparel designer, it’s happening.

a Dare Heart story

As I inched closer to starting my sixth decade I felt inspired to shape my own future and pivot to a new business...

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