Elle Newman

About

Don’t buy her flowers was founded in 2014 after founder Steph had just had her first baby. After her baby, she kept being given flowers by her friends and family and couldn’t understand why people were giving a new mum another thing to care for when they’re doing more caring then they’ve ever done in their life. She already had a popular blog called Sisterhood, and it wasn’t long before people started asking for more occasions other than just new mums. Steph then started doing packages for all different events such as ‘Gluten-free packages’ to ‘book packages’ the one that really caught my attention was the ‘Stand up to Cancer’ package. Don’t buy her flowers have also teamed up with brands such as ‘Cook’ which can add food vouchers to peoples packages. You can also give packages to men, women and couples they even put alcohol in some of them. Don’t buy her flowers moto is ‘Flowers say I’m thinking of you’ A gift package from Don’t buy her flowers says ‘ I’m thinking of you, this package is all you and I hope it makes you feel good.’

 

Product

Don’t buy her flowers packages range from 20 pounds to 33 pounds. They offer free delivery on orders over 70 pounds. The packages are in brown cardboard boxes and filled with shavings. Don’t buy her flowers is an English brand that ships only to the UK. I love the packages and how they look clear and pretty compared to the other products and websites this one is definitely the best regarding looks out of all the ones I’ve researched.

Build your package

The thing I like the most about this brand is that you can pick and choose what goes into your packages, eg on the stand up to cancer package you can decide what to select in five categories, and there are so many options in each group. It really gives people a choice in what they are picking. You can even create a whole package from scratch, so the parcel is entirely unique and personal. They also have excellent reviews on all their products on their website.

 

Social Media

Don’t Buy her flowers have a huge social media following with 52.6K followers online alone. They also have facebook and twitter, and even influencers such as Bowelbabe are promoting them on their social media.

About

Cancer care parcel was founded by Dr share Cohen in 2013 after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After she got diagnosed, she found little time to relax or even research was not top of her priority. She also felt there were a few friends who saw the situation very awkward, they avoided her as they didn’t know how to react or what to say. So she set up cancer care parcel, to enable children and adults with cancer to take some of the worries away and bring some calm back into their lives cancer care parcel is also an ideal gift, to let people with cancer know that you care and are thinking about them. The website is quite outdated and boring to look at they do have a lot of different packs depending on what treatment the person is having and what age/ gender they are. The website enables you to choose from a vast selection of parcels you can also select a pack based on what kind of cancer the person has I think this is such a good idea as everyone’s needs are different.

 

Products

There care parcels range from 45 pounds up to 150 pounds which I think is quite expensive as none of these products are bespoke, they have all got these products from elsewhere. They are also set packages, so you can’t change anything, which for the money I feel like you should be able to. With each box, it tells you how appropriate it is for the person who is undergoing treatment so so don’t get one full of products they can’t you. The parcels are packaged in brown boxes that say ‘Someone is thinking about you, and got you this gift’. They ship worldwide but are biased in the UK. They have reviews on their website that gives nearly all their products 5 or 4 starts, so the customers are pleased with them.

Resources

On their website as well as selling the parcels they also have a resources section where they keep personal stories, information on cancer research and charity partners. As well as these resources they have a blog one of the posts that caught my eye was ‘Stop telling me to be brave’ starting there #stoptellingme campaign I feel really strongly about stopping these types of words as I know effected my mum a lot as she felt constant pressure to be ‘Battling/ Winning/ Brave’

 

Social Media

Cancer care parcel also has on online presence. They have a facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkin and a google page. They keep them updated regularly and they have quite a lot of followers, they have 2,554 followers. But I feel like there is so much they couldn’t work with the online platform if they posted better content.

About 

Cancer be glammed otherwise known as GBG was founded in 2009 by two friends Ellen Weiss Leander and Lisa. Both women had cancer and understood the problems and stresses that come from it. They both looked for practical yet fashionable recovery products and style solutions that would help them to look better and reclaim their sense of self. But they soon realised that there was no such place, and so GBG was born. GBG is a website to help women prepare for the non-surgical appearance side to help provide people with easy access to popular recovery products and lifestyle solutions. And for family and friends who want to show their support, they offer thoughtful gifts that women in treatment will use and appreciate. Unfortunately, Ellen passed away in 2012, but Lisa still works on the website and keeps it going. On the website, you get given a large option of categories to choose from clothing, journals and planners, wigs, skin care, gifts and doctors advice. The website is easy to use and full of information and products to look at. Cancer be glammed is there to help women diagnosed with all forms of cancer recover with dignity, self-esteem and style.

Products 

Cancer be glammed don’t make there own products, they just point people to products they can buy. The one that stood out to me the most was the cancer gift baskets, I really like the idea of a hamper and will be looking into this next. The buskets are quite basic, full of other brands products and really expensive. But I think I could come up with a better package. As well as products they also have a selection where they talk about all the different charities and places where people can go for advice or talk telling their readers ‘You are not alone’.

Blog 

Cancer is glammed also has a blog that they regularly update. This has story’s, advice and fashion. One of the articles that caught my attention was called ‘What should I bring to Chemo’ I love that this is spoken about and she asks the followers for advice, so it really is a community feel.

Guide

Cancer is glammed have also released a guide called ‘Recover in style’. This guide prepares women facing all form of cancer, about appearance.  This magazine-style guide empowers women to tackle day to day recovery challenges while maintaining their dignity, self-esteem and personal style.

Social Media 

CBG also uses social media to help push their awareness, they use Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. The most interesting one is youTube. They put up videos where they talk to people about treatments and fashions. I think this is an excellent and unique idea that really adds to the brand and community spirit of the brand.

I next wanted to look into influencers who have/are going through cancer, I hope from this research no only to find out more about living with the disease but also to see what is important to them and if fashion is spoken about in their own work.

Saima Thompson

  

In April 2018 Saima Thompson was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, at 29 years old. Saima is a Pakistani businesswoman who runs a restaurant in south London. She started a blog called Curry and Cancer where she talks about her battle with cancer, she works with a personal trainer and focusses on physical fitness and mental wellbeing. Saima wants to redefine what it means to live with the disease and prove that there is still a joy to be found in life.

Olivia Smith

  

Oliva was in my class at Brighton University in 2016, but I took a sandwich year, and she stayed on. In 2018 she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. As her final major project she created cancer chicks a blog for young women who are going through cancer. The blog aims at looking at physical appearance teaching women how to feel confident with there change in appearance. Olivia has 31.5K followers on Instagram, and cancer chicks have 2,342 Followers.

Deborah James

  

Deborah James is a 36-year-old wife and mum of two, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer last year. Before she was diagnosed with cancer, she was a deputy head teacher, but now she is a columnist for the sun co-hosts a podcast You, Me and the big C on radio 5 with the recently deceased journalist Rachael Bland and Lauren Mahon. Deborah also has a blog called bowel babe where she documents her life and how to live with cancer. She has also just recently released her first book called ‘F*** Cancer which is about how to live with the disease.

 

Lauren Mahon

Lauren Mahon is 32-year-old Britsh women from London. In August 2016 she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She then had eight rounds of chemotherapy and 21 doses of radiation to get the all clear. Since she got entirely clear, she has been working on lots of projects. She started a social media page and is the face of GirlVcancer the website sells t-shirts with profits going to a range of different partner charities. After Miss Selfridge began selling identical t-shirts which they then pulled they have teamed up with girlvcancer to sell their products. Lauren is also a co-host of You, me and the big C with Deborah James which is a podcast that has honest discussions about cancer and tips to living with it.

From looking at influencers, I have been introduced to lots of different companies and groups that help people with cancer, such as the Radio 5 podcast called You, me and the big C which is incredibly informative and lighthearted. From researching these Influencers I have backed up my original idea that fashion and clothing are essential to people who are going through cancer, this has given me confidence that my work is heading in the right direction.

About 

Care+Wear is a clothing company that was founded in 2014. I found the company two years ago, while at university working on another project. Unfortunately, since then, the original founder of the company who was undergoing chemotherapy has passed away. But his friends and family are carrying on the business and since I last looked it has grown and rebranded.

Care+ Wear is a company that makes clothing for people who are undergoing cancer treatments. They say that they work closely with patents, clinicians, designers to create fashionable, functional clothing. Their main aim is to allow people who are undergoing treatment to feel normal so they can go about there everyday lives without having a constant reminder of their illness Care +Wear is an American company though they do ship all over the world.

 

Products 

Care+Wear sells products for men, women and children. Their first product was the PICC line cover’s which were extremely popular as they were the first of there kind. Previously doctors had advised patients to use an old sock to make a tube to go around the arm. They have five stars on their website and many glowing reviews. The cover’s also come in some colours and sizes so everyone can get one no matter the gender, age or size. There second best selling product is there ODLAR chest 8 port access women’s and men’s hoodies. Their hoodies are made from a cotton/ lyocell blend which is perfect for someone who is going through cancer treatments as the skin is susceptible. They also have two zips that go down from the collarbone perfect for people going through Chemotherapy, dialysis and blood draws. They sell similar clothing for newborn babies and children also.

 

Social Media 

Care+Wear has a great looking website, which is so easy to use and clean. They also have profiles on facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Linkin and Instagram where they have 1,110 followers which is impressive for a relatively new company.

About

My chronic Style is the first clothing range designed for women who suffer from invisible illnesses. The founder of My Chronic Style is Paula P, she suffers from Endometriosis, Adenomyosis, Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Due to her illness, she found that not only was getting up and dressed hard but the idea of having to find something that was comfortable to wear was a huge issue. Because of her illness, Paula needs to wear clothes that are comfortable but aren’t too scruffy looking, so women can leave the house feeling confident about themselves. This is the first clothing range designed for women with chronic illness in the world. The company only started this year so the website is nice but quite basic, I think this will change the longer the company is open. I really like the idea of this company which is to make fashion accessible for all. I have taken inspiration from this company as I really like the message they are sending.

Products 

My Chronic Style sells lots of different ranges of clothing from full outfits, dresses, skirts, tops, trousers, underwear, accessories, sunglasses and nightwear. All the products are available from S to XXXL which is really good as any women of any size could buy the clothing. It doesn’t say on the website where the clothing is made and buys looking at the website I’m assuming that the clothing is made oversea’s which I don’t really agree with. I also think the photoshoots look quite fake photoshopped which I think hurts the brand. But they do have good reviews on there website and it shows that they ship all over the world.

 

Social Media 

My Chronic Style has several social media platforms that they regularly update. They have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter for a new company they have done well to get the followers and customers that they have especially as they haven’t come from a famous background like a lot of other people.

  

Stand up to Cancer is a fundraising telethon on Channel 4. It is an annual campaign that brings the UK together to speed up progress in life-saving cancer research. Stand up to cancer funds research, which takes developments in the labs and accelerates them into brand new tests and treatments for cancer patients who need them. In the 1970s 1 in 4 people survived cancer how it is 2 in 4, stand up to cancer aim is to make it 3 in 4 by the year 2034. Stand up to cancer was originally launched in the US in 2008 and started in the UK in August 2012. The total amount of money raised in 2018 was an amazing 24,638,037.

To help with the fundraising channel 4 do special famous channel 4 shows such as ‘Great British Bake-off’, First Dates, Celebrity Gogglebox which runs for a week then they have a full show with performers, celebrities challenges are fighting cancer. As well as TV shows they also encourage people to fundraise themselves by hosting there own Bake Offs, Come Dine with Me’s etc they even sell packs online that you can buy to start your events with the official logos and face paints. They also sell merchandise you can buy such as T-shirts, bags and bracelets to name a few. They also use social media to gain a following they have 35.6K followers on Instagram, but they also use facebook, twitter and Youtube so they can interact with people across all platforms.

I really like this campaign and I think its a perfect example of how a successful 360-degree campaign is. This campaign uses print, online, tv and radio and even has products to help spread the message about the campaign and to raise money. I will be taking inspiration from this campaign of how to do it successfully, I also love how everything goes together, you can tell that they are all attached to the same campaign.

Before I look into fashion and cancer I want to research Cancer as a whole. If I’m going to use Cancer in my final major project then I want to know everything about it, I’m going to look into what Cancer is, What treatments are on offer and what are the side effects and what Charites/ organizations are available.

What is Cancer? 

Cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases. In all types of cancer, some of the body’s cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues. Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells.

What treatments are on offer? 

There are a number of treatments on offer for people who are diagnosed with cancer. Before treatment is offered doctors take a number of things into consideration, first, they look at what kind of Cancer it is if it’s in one place they could offer surgery as an option but if the cancer is no contained somewhere in the body they won’t as cancer is highly contagious in the body meaning if it reaches the bloodstream it would be transported all over the body. They also look at how far the cancer is. Cancer is put into four stages;

• stage 0 which means the cancer is located in one place and hasn’t started to spread to any nearby tissue.
• Stage 1 which is small cancer or a tumour that has not grown deeply into nearby tissues.
• Stage 2 and 3 which means there are larger cancers or tumours that have grown more deeply into the nearby tissue.
• Stage 4 at this stage cancer has spread to other organs or parts of the body and is terminal.

The treatments on offer to people going through Cancer are

• Surgery
• Radiation
• Hormone Therapy
• Chemotherapy
• Targeted Therapy
• Palliative Care

Sometimes people have more than one treatment for one cancer such as a combination of Radiation and Chemotherapy.

What are the side effects from treatment? 

There are a number of different side effects from these treatments, and every person varies so one person may get really bad side effects or some people get no side effects. The most common side effects from Cancer treatments are;

• Anaemia
• Appetite loss
• Bleeding
• Bruising
• Constipation
• Fatigue
• Hair loss
• Mouth ulcers
• Mouth and Throat problems
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Pain
• Skin and nail changes
• Sleep problems
• Some peoples body’s struggle to regulate temperature

Cancer charities/organizations

 

Cancer affects almost everyone with 359,960 cases of cancer recorded in the Uk in 2015, and over 163,444 people died from Cancer in 2016.  Every two minutes someone in the UK are diagnosed with Cancer, and cancer also accounts for more than 28% of all deaths in the UK in 2016. Out of the treatment options, 45% of people go down the surgery route, 27% have radiotherapy and 28% have chemotherapy. Because Cancer is such a huge killer in the UK a number of different charities have been set up to help defeat cancer the most popular is cancer research, Teenage Cancer Trust, Treckstock. A lot of these charities are aimed at a particular group of people or cancer such as Breast Cancer Now and Teenage Cancer Trust. They have also created ribbons that are different colours/ designs that represent the different Cancer’s. There are also a lot of help groups that have been set up to help people who are going through cancer such as Macmillian and Marie Curie.

 

The last group I want to research is illness and fashion, there are so many different illnesses to look into. I said at the beginning of this project that I wanted my Final Major Project to be not only something that I think could make a difference but also something that I fell passionate about and have a connection to. That is why I have chosen to research into Cancer and fashion.

In April 2016 my mum was diagnosed with oesophagal cancer, we found out in May that it was terminal. One of the side effects of having oesophagal cancer was that she found it very difficult to eat this lead to her losing a lot of weight very quickly. She found the weight loss very difficult to deal with, as she couldn’t go out and buy new clothes and her old clothes were falling off her. We ended up buying the nightclothes that she lived in, but because she didn’t want to know what size she was we had to cut the labels out of them. In May we got told that it was terminal and that she only had a few months to live, my mum chose not to have any treatment as the cancer was so aggressive that it wouldn’t have helped and also she didn’t want to go through the pain of Chemotherapy. My mum passed away on the 25th of July 2016, having seen how upset not having the right clothing affected her I want to see if there is anything currently available that would have helped, also how does it differ to a patient that is having treatment?

Alison Lapper MBE is an artist, television presenter, speaker and arts charity patron. Alison has a first class honours degree from Brighton University and is a member of the mouth and foot painting artists.

In 2016 after featuring in lots of documentaries, Alison began a new career as a TV presenter. She co-presented ‘No body’s perfect’ for BBC4, followed by her own take on William Blake for Sky Arts in 2017. Alison Lapper is a well known public figure and regularly talks about her life, she was born with no arms or shortened legs, she was institutionalised at six weeks old and spent the next 17 years at Chailey Heritage in Sussex.

At the age of 19, she got her driving licence and her own flat. She has even written an autobiography ‘My life in my hands’  which has been translated into nine languages.

In 200 Marc Quinn erected a statue of Alison Lapper pregnant in Trafalgar Square. He wanted the statue as the fourth plinth to celebrate ‘Someone who had conquered the outside world.’ In 2012 an inflatable version was used at the Paralympics games opening cemetery.