Sarah Beran has always been effortlessly cool. She’s the kind of woman who can make a white tee and vintage denim look like high-end editorial. A soft-spoken stylist with impeccable taste and zero ego, Sarah doesn’t need to be the loudest person in the room. Her presence speaks for itself.
What isn’t immediately visible is the grit behind that gentle exterior. She beat cancer and then built a fashion brand to help others fight it too.
Sarah grew up in St. Louis and studied textile and apparel management with an emphasis in merchandising and marketing. Fashion wasn’t accidental. It was intentional, structured and studied.
At 23 she headed for Los Angeles. “Literally the day after I graduated, I drove out to L.A.,” she says.
She worked in the Fashion District in wholesale and PR before launching a jewelry line while her children were still babies. Creativity has always been the through line.
“Being a mom is my priority always, but I still need to be doing something,” she says. “And it has to be creative.”
By April 2020, in the early months of COVID-19, Sarah was home with her two young children, ages 3 and 5. She began experiencing symptoms such as digestive issues, bleeding and exhaustion. But exhaustion is easy to dismiss when you have two small kids. Sarah was healthy, athletic and ate clean.
“I don’t fit the stereotype for someone to have colon cancer,” she explains. “Yet I knew this was not normal. I did not feel right. I know my own body, and I really felt like I needed to advocate for myself.”
That advocacy saved her life. During a quiet pandemic appointment, doctors performed a colonoscopy and found more than 100 polyps and a mass. Her diagnosis was stage III colorectal cancer. Eventually it spread to her lung, making it stage IV.
According to a study published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Colorectal cancer is now the #1 cause of cancer death in people younger than 50. More people die from it each year than breast or prostate cancer, yet it remains a disease many people rarely talk about.
When Sarah awoke from the colonoscopy, life split into before and after. What followed was relentless: 12 rounds of chemotherapy, major surgery, months of living with an ileostomy bag, a lung wedge resection, radiation, and scans every three months.
Still, she focused on protecting her children from fear. She told them, “I’m going to get better. It’s going to be a little hurdle in life, but we’ve got this.”
She and her husband, Brian, created small rituals of hope. When the needle from her chemo port was removed at home, they blasted George Michael’s song “Freedom! ’90.”
“You get a strength you don’t know you have,” Sarah shares.
Brian has been her steady rock from the beginning, the calm in every storm. Their partnership runs deep, and she says she could not have done it without him.
At the center of her story are statistics that show the importance of colonoscopies. During the procedure, doctors remove precancerous polyps before they turn into cancer. Screening before symptoms appear can reduce risk by up to 89%. Nearly 1 in 3 people ages 45 to 49 already has a precancerous polyp.
Sarah didn’t know those statistics before her diagnosis. Now they drive her. Out of trauma came purpose. Together with fellow survivor Brooks Bell, also diagnosed in her 30s, Sarah co-founded Worldclass, a purpose-driven fashion brand designed to destigmatize colonoscopies and change the conversation around colon cancer.
Worldclass isn’t typical cancer merchandise. The pieces are elevated, streetwear-inspired clothing someone might spot on a cool girl in Silver Lake or Nolita and immediately ask about. Only later does the deeper mission become clear.
“We wanted to figure out a way to make colonoscopies cool,” Sarah says, “to make them part of the wellness conversation.”
The brand’s mission is simple: Make colonoscopies more approachable and eliminate the stigma surrounding them. Every purchase helps fund colonoscopies for people who cannot afford them—covering prep, transportation, time off work and the procedure. There is already a waiting list of people hoping for access.
“Getting a colonoscopy is a lot easier than getting cancer, and it’s so easy to prevent,” Sarah says.
Worldclass has begun gaining national attention, including coverage on ABC News. Sarah insists that the brand remain joyful.
“We’re going to keep doing this,” she says, “but it needs to stay fun. Once it’s not fun anymore, we’re done.”
