Stella has created the organisation to work towards the “prevention, early detection and treatment of breast cancer” and she has enlisted the services of Idris Elba for a short awareness video entitled ‘All Is Love’.
With front fastening and soft internal pockets for use with prosthesis, the design aims to help minimise discomfort for thousands of women. As part of the launch of the new campaign, Stella has announced that 1,000 of these special bras will be given out to women with cancer – for free.
She said: “I am so proud and excited to say that I am launching the Stella McCartney Cares Foundation. In so many cultures, there’s so much stigma attached to breast cancer and I think through this campaign that I’ve really found out that the community is so critical and it’s so important.”
The clothing creative has been personally touched by the illness as her mother Linda McCartney was 56 when she tragically died from breast cancer, and that loss is the reason Stella is so determined to help cancer sufferers and the motivation behind starting her own charity.
Stella said: “It’s a cause so close to my heart and the reason I designed the Louise Listening bra is my experience of seeing someone that I loved go through such a traumatizing operation, a mastectomy. I found that the mastectomy bras available at the time were just another moment where [breast cancer patients] lost their femininity and they lost a sense of who they were as a woman. I wanted to create a product that really is still beautiful and still feminine and still celebrates the power of being a woman.”
Stella – who designed Meghan Markle’s second wedding dress in May – introduced the Louise Listening bra in 2015 which is a post-operative mastectomy compression bra exclusive to women undergoing breast cancer treatment, and to celebrate the launch of her charity, Stella will donate 1,000 free of charge to breast cancer sufferers.
Previously speaking, Stella said: “We wanted to bring something feminine and beautiful into a bra that is taboo. There are so many different emotions attached to the tragic realities of having had a double mastectomy, many cultures are not accepting and terrible things happen to women both physically and emotionally.We just wanted to make something that allows women undergoing this to have something to be proud of, something with no shame attached. We wanted women to know that you can still be feminine, have your sensuality, have all of the things that are attached to being a woman and that part of your body can still feel beautiful on the outside, as well as the inside.”
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