The “B.LIVE” Fashion Collection

Developed during the course of 2012, the project of the B.LIVE fashion collection involved 24 young patients, who, with the coordination of the stylist Gentucca Bini (and other professionals), designed and carried out a real fashion project in its various phases, up until the fashion show.

“We created something beautiful, and not only for ourselves, but for others too, we discovered that through creativity we could go beyond the limits that have been imposed on us by the disease” (Valeria).

“Suddenly, a funny thing happened. While before I was anxious every time I went to the hospital for treatment and follow-up, I was always agitated and worried, afterwards the hospital became a place where I wanted to go even when I didn’t have medical appointments because that was where I met my friends and felt that I was part of an important project” (Alessandro).

“For me, fashion is a sort of personal comeback, something that identifies me. It is a way of expressing ourselves and making us look better. This project is a whole ‘forest of symbols’ full of light and shadow, a creative act and a privilege. It is the best way to make a gray day colorful” (Diego).

“I wanted to design T-shirts and sweatshirts in yellow, sharp lemon yellow or mellow yellow like cheese. Yellow is the color of warmth and summer, and hay” (Megi).

“I create with purple, like the smell of lavender and the flavor of grapes, purple like cold, melancholy and envy” (Elisa).

Supported, like all other projects, by the Associazione Bianca Garavaglia, the fashion project also saw the collaboration of Fondazione Magica Cleme. After this project, B.LIVE became a registered trademark, which took different paths from those of the Youth Project and the patients of the Istituto dei Tumori of Milan (with which it has no longer worked).

Year

2012

Project type

Fashion collection 

Scientific publications

The story of the fashion collection is told on:
Veneroni L, Clerici CA, Proserpio T, Magni C, Sironi G, Chiaravalli S, Roncari L, Casanova M, Gandola L, Massimino M, Ferrari A. Creating beauty: the experience of a fashion collection prepared by adolescent patients at a pediatric oncology unit. Tumori 101(6):626-30, 2015