Designer Camilla Freeman-Topper is nearing the age her mother, Pam, was when she was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer.
Watch Below: Watch Below: Camilla Freeman-Topper shares heartbreaking story of losing her mother to ovarian cancer
When she lost her battle with the insidious disease two years later, Freeman-Topper was 11 years old – the age her eldest daughter, Leudi, is now.
“It was a huge tragedy and loss for us, and has taken us a long time to be able to talk about it because we’re fiercely private people, so it’s been quite a cathartic journey to date,” says Freeman-Topper, who runs venerated label CAMILLA AND MARC with her brother Marc Freeman.
The journey she’s referring to is the conception of Ovaries: Talk About Them – a campaign she and Marc hopes will encourage conversation around ovarian cancer and bring more attention to a disease which – from a funding standpoint – has been largely overlooked.
“What we realised is that, since her diagnosis, there’s been very little change in this field, in this sector and we thought, we’ve got to put our heads together to try and make a change here,” the creative director tells marie claire.
Currently, three women die every day in Australia from ovarian cancer, which has just a 45 per cent five-year survival rate, few obvious symptoms and no effective screening test.
“It’s something we’ve been working on for a really long time so the campaign is as clear and as straightforward as it sounds, because ultimately we are just simply trying to raise awareness of a cancer that’s one of the deadliest and most underfunded female cancers and one which really doesn’t have much awareness.”
As part of the campaign, the brand has designed two limited-edition T-shirts, sales of which will raise funds for Ovarian Cancer Research UNSW Sydney, which is developing an early detection test.
“If we could raise enough money to be able to get this to clinical trial, and it’s successful, just imagine how many women’s lives we could save,” the mother-of-three explains.
Muses, models, celebrities and high-profile names including Nicole Warne, Montana Cox, Jessica Rowe, Karl and Jasmine Stefanovic, gynaecological oncologist Rhonda Farrell and artist Gabrielle Penfold to drive the campaign, which was shot by esteemed photographer Georges Antoni and launches today.
While the siblings have found incredible success professionally, with their label now stocked by some of the world’s most prestigious fashion retailers, it’s this campaign which Freeman-Topper thinks their mother would be particularly proud of.
“At first it was sort of hard to think about that because that would make me quite sad, but now we’re at the point where it’s like, ‘you know what? She would be’, because right now we’re able to see how this campaign is evolving, and I think she’d be very proud.”
CAMILLA AND MARC ‘Ovaries: Talk About Them’ limited edition T-shirts are now available at CAMILLA AND MARC boutiques nationwide. www.camillaandmarc.com
Designer Camilla Freeman-Topper is nearing the age her mother, Pam, was when she was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer.
Watch Below: Watch Below: Camilla Freeman-Topper shares heartbreaking story of losing her mother to ovarian cancer
Designer Camilla Freeman-Topper is nearing the age her mother, Pam, was when she was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer.
Watch Below: Watch Below: Camilla Freeman-Topper shares heartbreaking story of losing her mother to ovarian cancer
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