Briana grew up on 80 acres of green hills and timberland in a quiet, rural township in Livingston County near Kansas City.  She is a creative, adventurous middle child of seven in a multiculteral American home.

In her youth, Briana spent her time training and showing her horse, painting, writing and playing sports at school. She played basketball, softball, and was a jumper in track and field. She also enjoyed hunting, fishing, boating, ice-skating, skiing and archery with her father and siblings. The family enjoyed the benefits of backyard nature and healthful living on wild game, fresh fruit and organic gardening with their mother. At the age of 15, the 5’ 11, green-eyed strawberry-blonde was spotted by a model scout while searching for a pair of riding boots in town with her mother. She soon began traveling to and from St. Louis to walk for local runway shows. She modelled part-time while finishing high-school and competed as an international high-jumper before moving to New York City in 2008, where she began work as a lingerie fit and showroom model for Van De Velde, Marie Jo, Andres Sarda, Rigby & Peller, Splendid Intimates, and Aubade Paris. In 2022, she moved to Paris and began a leisurely tour of Europe.

Briana studied Design Foundations at Savannah College of Art and Design and Neuroscience and Behavior at Columbia University. Today, you’ll find her somewhere in the world on horseback, perusing art and philosophy, searching for a good reason to stop.

FAMILY

Her father was a sixth generation American of Swedish and Norwegian ancestry and an avid outdoorsman, sportsman and business owner. Her mother is an OB nurse who traces her ancestral roots to the founding of America. Her maternal grandfather, veteran and gunsmith, William Oscar McCumber’s lineage descends from William Macomber who arrived in Dartmouth, Massachusetts in 1630. His father, John, was a member of the Mercers guild in Bridport, England and descends from the McComies of Glenshee and the highland Mackintoshes. William, “the cooper” and his brother John, a carpenter, joined English/Irish, English/Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, and German familles in Plymouth and were the sole progenerators of hundreds of McCumbers in colonial America. William’s grandson united with General James Cudworth’s granddaughter. The Cudworths descend from the Bigods and Mowbrays who appeared as witness to the Charter of Liberties and were signing Magna Carta Barons. Plymouth, notably, was one of the only early colonies to establish peaceful trade agreements with the Native Americans and avoid involvement in the transatlantic trade. The McCumber family has gracefully maintained these early American values over thirteen generations. Over twenty-five of her mother’s direct ancestors served in the Revolutionary War, including Colonel Spencer Ball and Lieutenant Benjamin Ball, the uncle and first cousin of George Washington. Thirty-two McCumber brothers and cousins, alone, held prominent leadership positions. Following the Revolutionary war, the family lived two generations in New York and Ohio.

Her maternal great-grandfather, Lowell Alvin O’Neal descends from Captain Daniel O’Neal, who arrived to Northumberland, Virgina from Co Limerick & Northern Ireland, around 1640 before settling on the coast of North Carolina. The O’Neal sons united with Scottish, English, Irish and German wives before moving to found Tennessee in 1811. Both the McCumbers and O’Neals fought for the union in the Civil War and shortly after settled on the fresh river basin of northwest Missouri where they remained peacefully rooted for many generations. Here, the McCumbers joined with the American Ball family and the German Gerlings and Ostermeiers and the O’Neals joined the American Freemans and Wagamans of German/Swiss/Scottish ancestry. Her great-grandmother McCumber descends from the 8th-11th century Burgundian lineage of Latin Emperor John de Brienne of Champagne, France and Empress Berengaria of Leon, Spain. Her great-grandmother O’Neal’s family arrived to Missouri from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany in the 1860s.

The Holmers, McCumbers, and O’Neals maintain over 500 acres of farm and untouched timber land and most importantly, thirteen generations of the practiced values that make a solid and satisfying American family and home.