“THEIR only wish is to run away. Do you know how many have called me this week to tell me they don’t feel like it? That they have low white blood cells? Even now they are writing to me. They will only come because they trust me … I say them to dedicate a day to do something that can help them. They don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. Their is a great act of trust. And mine – ours – is no small responsibility. “
Flashback, 2016
Elena Pasquin she is the psychologist of the San Bassiano Oncological Association and for some time she has been looking for an idea, an inspiration. Not always with the tools of psychotherapy can help patients to consider themselves again as people, and not just sick. And this pushes her to look for something else: “I was looking for an experience of what the Anglo-Saxons define as disruptive. Disruptive. A biographical shock as strong as that of the diagnosis of cancer, and which obviously worked in the opposite direction”, he tells a Breast Health (here the link to subscribe to the newsletter for free).
One day, by chance, she sees the Raptus & Rose dresses created by the Italian designer on Facebook Silvia Bisconti and the first thing he thinks is: they would look good on everyone. Then the idea. Not that of a fashion show with patients – there are so many of them – but of a much more complex project: “The diagnosis of cancer is a fracture between a before and an after, and it is as if the dimension of beauty has lost its sense. I was very far from thinking of a fashion show: the goal was to put beauty back in its place “.
The idea is this: to make a proposal to patients that is contrary to all their expectations in the most difficult phase of their illness. And that is to create something extraordinary and beautiful in the darkest moment. Ask only those who have divested in life and find it hard to disengage from the idea of being a patient instead of a woman, mother, daughter, friend … “Many patients – she says – have or find the resources to respond well to the disease. a person feels able to get on a catwalk, it means that he has already taken a step in regaining self-confidence. With this project, however, we want to address those who need it to start again. In fact, we only involve people who tell us no, who don’t want to do it “.
There is no other pathology that has an imaginative scenario linked to death and suffering like cancer, explains Elena: “The goal was to put patients in a position to think that there is more than the imaginary they had. chosen to live “. With the idea in the keyboard, Elena writes an email to the stylist. Some time passes, until he receives a call from him. Explains everything in one go almost without breathing. Silvia Bisconti remains silent. He doesn’t say yes or no, he wants to meet her the next day together with Dina Faoro, the vice president of the association.
Sisterhoods
“I had read the email but I waited to answer. I needed to think”, says Silvia Bisconti. Several years earlier, with Raptus & Rose he had given birth to the format La moda liberata, in which only ordinary women are parading, and not models who have a body that is too easy to dress. According to his philosophy, in fact, it is the dress that must adapt to the body, and not vice versa. If a dress doesn’t fit, the problem is with the dress, not the wearer.
“When Elena and Dina entered the Atelier – Silvia resumes – I read in their eyes everything I needed to know to say yes. The most beautiful yes, the most important of all the history of Raptus & Rose. , but what we wanted to do – what we have done and will continue to do – is a profound work on the body of women. We do not simply give clothes: it is a form of active charity and a therapeutic act that has immense potential “.
The Renaissance Fashion Show
The Défilé della Rinascita project was born from that meeting and the first edition was held in 2017. The final moment, yes, is a professional fashion show from all points of view. The Raptus & Rose team takes care of the direction of the event and of every organizational aspect, even teaching women how to walk on the catwalk, well aware of the fragility of those who will be with them and of how fundamental humanity is, even before professionalism. The dresses are hand-sewn and designed months in advance for each woman who will show, every detail has a meaning. Like the hairstyles with flowers, a symbol of rebirth that starts from the mind. And there are not only cancer patients, but also people from civil society and the health personnel who assist them during hospital treatment. The differences are nullified: all women transported to another paradigm, all share that same experience. The walkway takes just over half an hour, but what happens in the previous hours changes the whole perspective. For a whole day, many people just take care of who will parade. There are physiotherapists who specialize in cancer patients, and palliativists for patients who need pain therapy. “What we do is try to make them feel good and smooth out the differences”, Silvia continues: “Whoever faces an oncological disease bears the signs of treatment: these women feel full of defects, different. We uniform them in beauty”.
In the eyes of the others
There are no mirrors where women are dressed, made up and prepared, nor can they use cell phones to take pictures. “Each woman sees herself in the others and an extraordinary solidarity is born”, the psychologist resumes: “We have experienced for several years now that what happens on that day is a truly disruptive act. Sharing becomes total and all fears melt, while they feel the touch of foreign hands on their body that for the first time are not looking for the disease “.
Elena tells of women who hadn’t bought clothes for months and who, thanks to that experience, have started wearing make-up again. “We have so many testimonies … it is truly a rebirth. It was also for those who were in a terminal stage of the disease and marched with morphine. And it is for families, who often carry the greatest burden. Children and their companions after a long time see the person they love radiant again. And they understand that there is a glimmer of the future “.
Dina Faoro, vice president of the San Bassiano Oncological Association, has no doubts, because she has seen it many times: when a person’s quality of life improves, even the treatment gives better results. “When the disease becomes the owner of a person’s body, his main fear is that everyone can see the wounds. We know that their mind will finally be free from this thought. That moment will remain a very sweet memory in any case”.
After two years of forced stop due to the pandemic, the parade returns on Friday 10 September, and takes place in a highly symbolic place: the Ponte degli Alpini in Bassano del Grappa, reopened last May after seven years of restoration. “He too was ill: a diagnosis was made, he was treated and he was reborn”, concludes Dina: “We could only be here”.
For the first year, the Renaissance fashion show can also be followed in live streaming. Here is the link to connect to on Friday 10 afternoon, at 18.30.
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