Bra dresses support cancer fight
Some things are secret, even when the battle is over.
For the past year, Hannah Sherring has watched a loved one fight for life in a battle against aggressive breast cancer but, at that person’s request, she has kept their identity secret.
The 17-year-old Kapiti student refers to the woman as ‘‘someone close to me’’ or ‘‘someone I love’’ but she’s found a way to tell people about the fight.
This year, instead of speaking out, Sherring stitched, using bras to create a dress to shame the cancer that nearly took everything and to draw attention to a disease she felt was too often kept quiet.
‘‘I didn’t want to talk about it, so it was a way of working it out.’’
The one person she told was Crystal Goodwin-Ford.
‘‘Crystal supported me right through it all,’’ Sherring said. ‘‘A bit like a good bra,’’ her best friend laughed.
The students used dozens of pre-loved bras to make the dresses that they entered in their school’s wearable arts competition.
Goodwin-Ford said, compared to modelling the garments, making them was easy.
‘‘You know how good it feels taking off your bra at the end of the day? Imagine what it feels like taking off heaps of them.’’
Goodwin-Ford stitched her bras into a colourful skirt, while Sherring cut hers in half to mimic the mastectomy her loved one had endured.
The pair didn’t win the competition but said that the thunderous applause they had received was enough.
As for the woman who battled the disease? She’s on the road to recovery and is ‘‘incredibly proud’’ of what the girls did, Sherring said.
‘‘Maybe one day herself.’’ she’ll name