FASHIONS come and go, but if you don't know your tulip hems from your satin trenches, don't worry. One thing is guaranteed to be a stylish update to your wardrobe every summer: the T-shirts produced by Fashion Targets Breast Cancer. Since the campaign was launched in the UK in 1996, two years after it began in the US, the world's top models have queued up to wear the T-shirts, and their sale has raised £6.5 million for breast cancer research.
Their now iconic bull's-eye logo was designed by Ralph Lauren in 1994, when his friend Nina Hyde, the Washington Post's fashion journalist, was dying of breast cancer and asked if he could to something to raise awareness and funds to combat the disea
se. He responded by founding Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, in collaboration with Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta and several other prominent designers.
Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss and Claudia Schiffer were among the first models to wear the T-shirts. Since then, dozens of other celebrities and models have joined their ranks, including Jodie Kidd, Heidi Klum, Elle Macpherson and Jade Jagger. Leading photographers have also lent their support: in 2000 Kate Moss and Twiggy were photographed together by Brigitte Lacombe, while Gisele was photographed by Mario Testino.
Sales of the T-shirts from the FTBC range have enabled Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Ralph Lauren's nominated charity, to fund groundbreaking research and education work. Among other things, it has established the UK's first dedicated breast cancer research centre, successfully campaigned for the NHS breast screening programme to be extended to women aged up to 70, and launched the UK's largest ever study to find the causes of breast cancer. This research is vital, with more than 1,000 British women dying from breast cancer each month and one in nine being affected by the disease at some stage in their life.
As awareness has grown, the FTBC logo has become an international symbol. T-shirts are sold in Japan, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Brazil and Greece as well as in the UK and the US, and the design is now being incorporated in a range of accessories, from umbrellas, bikinis and bags to flip-flops, jewellery and pyjamas. The bull's-eye has also been produced in more than a dozen colours, including this year's gold.
For the 2006 campaign, which marks the charity's tenth anniversary, David Bailey has photographed ten models, each of whom chose their own underwear for the portraits. They are Jerry Hall, Eva Herzigova, Laura Bailey, Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer, Yasmin Le Bon, Lily Cole, Jasmine Guinness, Erin O'Connor and Liberty Ross. Join them in the coolest T-shirt of the season.
• The Fashion Targets Breast Cancer T-shirt is available in white or aqua (or limited-edition gold) and costs £13, £7.50 of which goes to Breakthrough Breast Cancer. The T-shirt and other items in the FTBC range are available via mail order (
www.fashiontargets.org.uk, 0870 750 7027) and from Marks & Spencer, River Island, House of Fraser, Warehouse, Jigsaw, Kookai and Nine West, among others
