Brittany and Johanna Cosgrove wearing MastectoTee t-shirts

This digital image was posted on Instagram and features the NopeSisters - Brittany Cosgrove on the left and Johanna Cosgrove on the right. They made their 'MastectoTee' t-shirts to promote breast cancer awareness in October 2016. Their Instagram post immediately attracted attention from around the world and 'literally changed our lives' (Brittany Cosgrove). NopeSisters Clothing was born and became a successful social enterprise operated solely via social media.

NopeSisters are supported by their mother Bette Cosgrove (who took this photo). Bette was the original inspiration behind the MastectoTee. Brittany designed and embroidered a t-shirt showing the scar of breast cancer surgery, modelled on their mother’s scar.

Over the next few months they hand-embroidered 200 t-shirts, with profits going to Bette’s breast cancer survivors’ dragon boating team (CanSurvive) in Wellington. By early 2017, they couldn’t keep up with demand, so approached A1 Embroidery in Petone, Lower Hutt, to make the t-shirts. A1 replicated the look of hand-stitching, and sourced ethically made cotton t-shirts and embroidered each t-shirt to the buyer’s specifications (buyers can indicate which side they would like the scar to be on).

The MastectoTee is intentionally confronting. It aims to normalise breast cancer scars by showing what is normally hidden underneath clothing, prosthetics, and reconstruction. It takes a ubiquitous item of fashion (the t-shirt) and works against idealised images of femininity and sexualised breasts. It takes a typically female craft – embroidery – and uses it to evoke surgical scars hidden under clothing.

NopeSisters make clothing with a message and share their profits with charity organisations that align with issues they feel strongly about. Their ‘mission is to design fashion for a cause, making a positive difference to real people, one tee at a time’ (https://nopesistersclothing.com/).

They address key ongoing feminist issues and contemporary zeitgeist movements, including: sexual abuse and gender-based violence and the #metoo movement; period poverty and access to affordable and sustainable menstrual products; breast cancer awareness; mental health issues which lead to suicide, by publicly addressing these issues on clothing. Their t-shirts act as walking billboards and conversation-starters. ‘Girls – we’ve got things to say. Wear it on your chest – you don’t have to talk’ (Bette Cosgrove, 2018). T-shirts have long been used for this purpose. Branded T-shirts are a useful tool for protest and social movements - they are affordable, popular, and easy to print and embellish.