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MastectoTee – Fashion art with heart

Nope Sisters Clothing – the story of the MastectoTee – Fashion art with heart Feb 2017

Who are the Nopesisters?
Two Wellington sisters - Brittany Cosgrove (aged 23) Johanna Cosgrove (aged 24).
Brittany works on design and sewing, Johanna handles social media and marketing.

Background - The Creation of the MastectoTee
In Breast Cancer Awareness Month October 2016, two sisters were looking for a creative way to openly share messages of awareness through fashion. They designed and embroidered a t-shirt, boldly showing the scars of breast cancer treatment, based on their mum’s breast cancer surgery.
The tee was an outlet for their creative voice, and a way to simply and effectively remind women to be aware of their bodies, and get their breasts checked.

After just a few social media posts wearing the tees on Instagram, the sisters knew they were onto something, as people locally, and around the world began to ask for shirts.
Within a week Nopesisters Clothing, and the Mastectotee were launched as a charity project for the sisters. The mission statement became “Sisters making dope stuff for a good cause”.

Why the name? “We are passionate about being brave to create wearable garments which have a strong message, and we want to team this with celebrating and donating to causes that we truly believe in.” said Johanna. “Our name reflects a level of resistance to politeness and political correctness. We just want to say ‘Nope’ to those who want to sugarcoat, gloss over or ignore important messages.” she adds.
They chose their Mum, Bette Cosgrove’s, feisty and inspiring breast cancer support team - CanSurvive - as a charity for donations of 10% of the proceeds from shirt sales. She is a member of a team of Wellington women, who compete as part of a worldwide movement of breast cancer survivor dragon boat teams, in order to promote health and fitness following breast cancer treatment. “We believe these women reflect the same message - saying “NOPE ! – cancer is not going to hold us back!”

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The hand-stitching of the MastectoTee logo was a conscious choice. “We wanted to put some time and love into the shirts, rather than mass produce by screen printing, so every Tee had our hand work in it.” said Brittany, who found the time to hand sew individual orders for the first three months.
Johanna, an actor with wide connections, took on the social media management as orders flooded in. Many requests came from men and women with a personal connection to breast cancer sufferers, and encouragingly, many young people began wearing MastectoTees, attracted by the unique, youthful voice of the sisters on social media.

Next steps – Growing demand for Mastectotees
Many more MastectoTee wearers wanted to boldly wear its message of support across their chest, and contribute to a good cause. Within only a few months the shirts were being sent all over the world, and it was difficult for the sisters to keep up with demand on top of their full time work. As each Mastectotee was hand sewn to order by Brittany, the sisters used their own breasts as models to try and ensure an authentic size, shape and fit.

“Due to increased demand, we had to search for a way to out-source the sewing, and find a
reliable source of quality base garments, while maintaining the authentic hand-stitched design.” explained Brittany.
They found an incredibly supportive local embroidery business - A1 Apparel in Petone, who managed to recreate the hand-stitched logo with some creative work by their head designer.

What do the sisters enjoy most about this work?
“Using online media to connect has been so positive. Sticking to our principals and message, while collaborating with a charity has been the key to spreading the word about our t-shirts.” says Johanna. “It’s also such a joy to walk down the street in Wellington and see people wearing MastectoTees, because they often provoke a reaction and a conversation!”

“It’s amazing to see posts of people wearing our shirts as far away as UK and USA. We receive messages of support and interest from all over the world – especially from women who have suffered from breast cancer, or their support team and family members. They tell us they love what we are doing.” says Johanna. “The world can be connected to something positive and meaningful by sharing our art shirts and that is just fantastic!”

What can we expect of Nope Sisters Clothing in the future?
Now that regular MastectoTee sales offer some income to grow and develop new designs for good causes, the sisters are working on some new bold statements through fashion.

“We know that we can share strong messages through our art, so there are plenty of new ideas for future designs and collaborations with other charities.” says Brittany.

“You can definitely expect some new wearable messages raising money for good causes that we are passionate about.” she says.

Where can you find out more? Or get some photos?

Instagram - @nopesistersclothing
Facebook - NOPESISTERS
Email - nopesistersclothing@gmail.com
Link to ONLINE ORDER FORM
#MastectoTee #nopesistersclothing #breastcancerawareness

A1 Apparel - http://www.a1embroidery.co.nz/
Email - sales@a1embroidery.co.nz

CanSurvive - website http://www.cansurvive.co.nz
Link to MastectoTee story
Facebook - CanSurviveNZ CanSurvive Dragon Boat Team
Instagram – CanSurviveCan2

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