When Princess Bombyck was 9 years old, a civil war forced her family from their home in Liberia. In the chaos, a young American public health student showed up to help. She provided basic health care to families who had nothing, and though she may never know the impact of that one act, it changed the trajectory of a young girl’s life. As a result, Bombyck is now building Juah Apparel, a luxury athletic wear brand with a mission to give back to the communities that need it most.
Bombyck is developing Juah Apparel as a participant in the University of Utah’s Master of Business Creation (MBC) program, where she is refining both the brand’s product line and its social impact model. The name “Juah” means “strength,” a word that runs through everything the company does.
Bombyck came to the United States at 18 and earned a degree in public health, dedicating her career to communities that are often overlooked. During COVID-19, she saw those same communities were hit the hardest. Refugee women in her network were isolated, cut off from health resources, and falling further behind. With her background in public health, Bombyck recognized that something as accessible as regular exercise could make a massive difference. She began offering free virtual fitness classes and weekly health education sessions, but knew she could not scale it alone.
“I reached out to brands that talk about empowerment and asked them to help,” Bombyck said. “Most of them said no. So, I decided to build my own.”
That decision became Juah Apparel. The brand offers premium athletic wear designed for performance, with a portion of every purchase funding gym memberships, fitness classes, and wellness programs for women from refugee and marginalized communities. The give-back program currently provides six women with free three-month gym memberships and a training community where no one has to walk into the gym alone.
Bombyck designed Juah to lead with the product. The athletic wear is built to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best names in the industry. Juah’s pieces are built from premium materials designed to hold up across any activity, whether it is a track workout, a weight room session, or a yoga class.
“Our customers value premium apparel, and they don’t mind paying for quality as long as it’s effective,” Bombyck said. “I want people to see the product and know it can stand on its own. The mission makes it meaningful, but the clothing has to deliver first.”
The social mission is not separate from the brand. It is woven into the business model the same way quality is stitched into every piece, and the impact of that model is already showing. One woman in the give-back program has seen her own daughter start co-teaching Juah’s wellness classes, passing the support forward to the next person and the next generation. For Bombyck, that is exactly the point.
“Impact is an ongoing process,” Bombyck said. “It goes a long way if you impact a woman today. Some student from America, across generations, across nations, went to a foreign country and impacted me. Now I’m in the position where I’m able to give back.”
That is the vision Juah is built around. As the brand grows, so does the give-back program behind it, bringing more women access to gym memberships, fitness classes, and wellness resources, and more opportunities for those women to turn around and lift someone else up. Every purchase funds the next membership. Every membership plants the next act of care. Bombyck has not forgotten where it started, and she is building Juah to make sure the chain of strength and support continues to grow.
Learn more about Juah Apparel and follow them on Instagram at @shopjuahapparel.
