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!”
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