Fashion Targets Breast Cancer

FTBC was set up waaaaaaay back in 1994 by Mr Ralph Lauren, who took it upon himself to unite the fashion industry in order to raise awareness and funds for the breast cancer cause after losing a close friend to the disease.

All the money raised year after year, thanks to all of you generous guys out there, goes towards Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s vision of a future free from the fear of breast cancer. Did you know that one in eight women in the UK will be diagnosed with the disease during their lifetime? So next time you’re hanging out with your best gals, you can probably take a look around, and sadly know that the odds of one of you ending up with this harrowing illness at some point in life is quite probable. Scary when you think of it like that isn’t it? When it’s happening to someone you know; when it’s close to home; that’s when it finally hits you, and you get it, and you begin to understand just what a crippling effect this disease has on so many lives in our world. And so Breakthrough’s work in finding the causes, improving health services and finding new and better treatments through necessary research, remains more vital than ever.

During its 18 year span, some of the fashion world’s biggest names, including the likes of Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Jerry Hall, Kate Moss, Elle Macpherson, Twiggy & Kylie Minogue have all fronted the FTBC campaign. This year, the privilege has been given to Brit ‘it’ girls Georgia May Jagger and Pixie Geldof, who are both extremely passionate about the cause and helping drive forward the fight against breast cancer.  

Every year a whole host of the best British high street retailers – including good old M&S, River Island, Topshop, Warehouse, Coast, My Wardrobe, Laura Ashley, Debenhams, and many more – join in to sell bespoke FTBC merchandise throughout the Spring, with a minimum 30% of the sale price being donated to Breakthrough Breast Cancer. And as always, this year boasts a whole crop of exciting bits and bobs ripe for the picking, including a few of my favourite picks below:

a bespoke Filofax auctioned off on eBay in aid of FTBC, featuring personalised pages by the likes of Giles Deacon & Matthew Williamson! B-E-A-Utiful illustrations

Without fail, every year sees these I-MUST-HAVE items fly off the shelves, raising more than £12 million for this cause since its launch all those years ago. So if you like what you see, there’s no time for umming and ahhhing – buy now, and we’ll cross that (credit-card-bill) bridge later... and anyway, without you filling up your wardrobes with these hot new items each year, this amount of money would not have been raised, so I urge you to not feel guilty; and to rather give yourself a great big high five. Buy it. Fight it. Wear your support! Hell to the YEAH.

Are you still feeling guilty? I TOLD YOU NOT TO! Tell you what – take a look at this and see firsthand the lifesaving work you are helping to fund - FEEL GOOD about that: