A Toronto-based Black-owned company created the first breast undergarment to show what breast cancer symptoms look like on women with darker skin tones.
Love & Nudes, founded by Chantal Carter in collaboration with the advertising agency McCann Toronto, made the Stage Zero Collection to assist Black women in recognizing breast cancer symptoms before they appear in real life.
Black women diagnosed with breast cancer have a 40 per cent higher death rate than white women. Diagnoses are often found in Black women once the disease has progressed to latter stages.
“The bras don’t mean anything if the person is not alive to wear them,” Carter says, describing the urgency of her garment.
According to Love & Nudes, a self-examination breast tool to show breast cancer on darker skin did not exist until they created it.
Stage Zero Collection bras allow those wearing the garments to see, touch and feel signs of swelling, lumps or discoloration that may differ from signs of redness on fairer skin.
Tested over 18 months of production, with the expertise of Dr. Mojola Omole, the surgical oncologist and chief medical officer behind the collection, the 3D attachments work to reflect subtle colour changes on Black skin.
In Canada, breast cancer screening is recommended once women reach 50 years of age, resulting in younger women, especially those of colour, being denied screenings which could be crucial in detecting cancer early. Love & Nudes is working to change that age to 40.
Omole says, “for certain groups with racialized women and Black women, 40 makes more sense because the age of presentation for breast cancer is much lower.”
Stage Zero Collection has a petition to lower the breast cancer screening age here.
