Bryony Gordon
Bryony Gordon, who hit the bestseller lists with a memoir about her mental health, now wants to make a statement with her first fashion collection
You’ve read my newspaper columns … now buy the T-shirt!
It started with a tweet, just over three years ago. I was battling a toxic combination of OCD, depression and alcoholism, unable to leave the house except for brief runs, alone, and I was desperate. I was desperate to meet other people like me, the one in four that statistics told me suffered from some form of mental illness every year, but with whom I never felt able to identify because the stigma around these things was still too big, too shaming.
I knew there were lots of other people out there like me, but I didn’t know how I was supposed to meet them. There was no place to go and so… well, I decided, quite without realising I was doing it, to create one.
I sent out a tweet suggesting that if anyone fancied going for a walk, where they could get out the house and talk with like-minded people without fear of
judgment, then I would be at a café in Hyde Park at a certain time on a certain day. It got a few retweets, a number of likes, and when I left the house on the day in question, I thought I really had gone mad.
To my endless surprise, 20 people turned up. And now, Mental Health Mates is all over the country, and in places as far afield as Australia. What is more, one of my favourite fashion brands has collaborated with us to create a range of T-shirts and jumpers that will (hopefully) allow people to reclaim their mental health for themselves, and raise money for
Mental Health Mates in the process. Selfish Mother, which was founded by my friend and former fashion editor Molly Gunn, is a line of hugely popular “Good Tees” that has raised more than £1 million for good causes including Save the Children, Stand Up To Cancer and Help Refugees. They have been worn by Kate Moss, David Gandy, Russell Brand and Fearne Cotton. So when Gunn suggested that we collaborate to raise money for Mental Health Mates, I did two things: I had a little cry, and then, through snotty tears, attempted to yelp a huge “YES!”
Today, the Mad Girl range of Good Tees – so named after my book about my battle with mental illness – will go on sale, and I can’t quite believe it. (There are also Mad Boy designs for any men who want to join in.) It’s a huge moment for this little community project, which is run almost entirely thanks to volunteers who set up walks in their local areas, and we hope that with the help of Selfish Mother, we will be able to grow Mental Health Mates even further, so that it involves everything from cooking to exercising with like-minded people.
The T-shirts are modelled by friends I’ve made through my work in the mental health sphere: the chef Melissa Hemsley, who came on my Mad World podcast; Becky Vardy, who was also a guest on the show and has experienced many mental health issues herself; Poorna Bell, the author and campaigner whose beautiful book, Chase the Rainbow, dealt with her late husband’s death by suicide; and Mika Simmons, an actress and filmmaker who has personally looked after me during some of my darkest moments.
Simmons, who was bullied as a child, wishes she had gone to her parents sooner. “I think shame plays a huge part in not reaching out for help and, in this particular case, I think I believed the bullying was my fault – that I deserved it. Allowing myself to be vulnerable is paramount for me to have good mental health and right-sized self-esteem.”
I could not be more honoured to see them in these beautiful, brave T-shirts, which defiantly tell the world that the wearer won’t be silenced by mental illness.
And if describing a piece of clothing as brave sounds silly to you, it doesn’t to me. I firmly believe that being open about my mental health has saved my life, and I hope that in some tiny way these T-shirts normalising the seemingly abnormal will encourage others to be open about theirs, too. These are clothes that allow everyone to wear their heart – and their head – quite literally on their sleeve. They say: “I have been
affected by mental health, and I am not ashamed of it. And nor do you have to be either.”
As part of the campaign, we asked our new ambassadors (we actually have ambassadors – I mean, pinch me) why reaching out and asking for help is important to them. Hemsley, who last year mopped away my tears during a particularly bad bout, explained the importance of conversations to her. “When my late father was very ill, I was in and out of four hospitals over several years – I even wrote a lot of one of my cookbooks in the waiting rooms and by his bed – and the passing chats from strangers and the nursing team were fundamental in keeping me going. I used to hide from conversations in painful moments and now I seek them out. I try my best to give that ‘stranger karma’ back. When I see anyone sad on the Tube now, if I’ve got a tissue, it’s theirs. I always carry a few little emergency chocolate bars in my ginormous Mary Poppins handbag to hand out.” Bell knows all too well from personal experience how important it is to speak out, and yet, like most of us, she still doesn’t find it easy. “I remember that after Rob died, once the initial flurry of activity went away I was left to process my grief alone, and I had to become very proactive about asking for help. For me, the defining moment came when I had to go through his stuff, and I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. I remember texting my sister and my best friend, and just knowing that they cared enough and valued me enough helped me to get through it.”
Vardy, who tried to kill herself when she was just 14, also finds that asking for help doesn’t come naturally. “I am so bad at opening up and I never want to burden anyone but I’ve realised that even for someone as stubborn as me, sometimes it just feels better to get things off your chest and have a good chat.” Listening to them speak, I am reminded of the isolation of mental illness. I hope these T-shirts will go a tiny way towards changing that. That when people see them, they might, even for the smallest of moments, remember that they are not alone. Not at all.
Visit thefmlystore.com/collections/ bryony-gordon. T-shirts £35 and sweatshirts £55; £10 from each sale goes to Mental Health Mates