For International Lung Cancer Awareness Month, The Brill Building has created The Breathless Collection for the Marie Keating Foundation (MKF). The clothes and accessories collection mimics the symptoms of lung cancer. Lung cancer survival rates improve dramatically when the disease is caught early. Greater symptom awareness will save lives.
Only 29 per cent of Irish people say they feel well informed around the signs and symptoms of lung cancer. With 2,740 diagnosed and 1,900 lives lost each year in Ireland, the charity launches provocative, fashion-led awareness innovation which urges: “Don’t wear the symptoms of lung cancer. Get it checked.”
Warning signs
The MKF cancer charity focused on early diagnosis and survivorship hopes the provocative education-based approach will encourage people not to ignore warning signs such as breathlessness, fatigue, or a persistent cough or a change in cough lasting more than three weeks. Lung cancer still takes the lives of more men and women in Ireland than any other cancer.
While advances such as immunotherapy and personalised treatments are improving outcomes, early detection remains the key to saving lives. The five-year net survival rate for lung cancer in Ireland is just 24 per cent, and while this has been slowly improving in recent years thanks to new treatments, awareness of symptoms remains worryingly low.
The Breathless Collection features bespoke garments and accessories — including a gilet, scarf, tote bag, shoes and coffee keep-cup — each designed to physically replicate the hidden weight, restriction and exhaustion that people with lung cancer may experience before diagnosis.
Weighted fabrics and shoes as well as constrictive tailoring mirror symptoms too often dismissed as the toll of everyday life or aging. Lung cancer survival rates improve dramatically when the disease is caught early. Greater symptom awareness will save lives. The problem? Too often the symptoms can be dismissed as simply the toll of daily life or getting older.
Key to better survival outcomes is early detection
What does fatigue or breathlessness feel like when it’s something to be concerned about? How will patients realise or loved ones notice? These are the questions the agency team led by creatives Peter Snodden and John McMahon asked. The Breathless Collection answers that – designed in collaboration with leading Irish cancer scientists and lung cancer survivors.
They had the support of fashion stylist Cathy O’Connor and photographer Barry McCall. MKF has invested in innovation to build symptom public awareness through its Big Check Up campaigns, including Ireland’s first poster to catch lung cancer with messaging that only revealed itself when someone coughed, and the Filter Out Lung Cancer Snapchat AR lens.
Catherine Ardagh TD, a long-time advocate for cancer awareness, took part by wearing pieces from The Breathless Collection. Dr Martin Barr, clinical scientist and clinical senior lecturer, Thoracic Oncology Research Group, Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute, said the key to successful lung cancer treatment and better survival outcomes was early detection.
