After art teacher Jeannette van Beveren was told she had to undergo a mastectomy, she was sure she did not want a prosthesis or reconstructive surgery, and so she started designing clothes for women with one breast.
”When I told the hospital cancer counsellor that I did not want to wear a prosthesis after the surgery, I was forced to take one home anyway,” she said.
”The counsellor told me I would get tired of all the disapproving looks within three months and turn to the prosthesis,” said the blonde, dressed in a tight white T-shirt with a bold blue print over her missing breast.
She stuck with her idea and three years later Van Beveren and her business partner Paula van der Post receive prospective clients in a stately home in a leafy suburb in The Hague.
In 2002 Van Beveren, 46, and Van der Post, 43, created the Lobstar foundation to sell their clothes to other women who have decided not to fill up the empty space left by their mastectomy.
The name follows from the zodiac sign cancer, latin for lobster.
The women hooked up in 2001 when a mutual friend suggested Van der Post, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, meet Van Beveren who had just had her mastectomy.
For Van der Post, who had been wearing a prosthesis for five years, meeting Van Beveren was the answer to her own discomfort.
”When I saw Jeannette and the way she dressed, I thought, I could do this too. It honestly never occured to me that I could just take the prosthesis off,” she said.
Now Van der Post is dressed in a tight black T-shirt with rips in the place of her missing right breast, revealing a hot pink camisole underneath. The shirt designed by her business partner is meant to distract from the missing breast while at the same time drawing attention.
”Lobstar’s goal is to bring about a change in society,” said Van Beveren.
The duo wants to show that women with one breast can be beautiful too.
The hallway of Van Beveren’s house is filled with colourful tops, dresses and bathing suits with strategically placed frills, bold prints or appliqués. All sample clothes come in pairs: one for women without a right breast, the other for those whose left breast was amputated.
The styles range from punk inspired T-shirts to an elegant black cocktail dress with a large rose appliqué‚ or a bathing suit with a large fish sewn on.
In all the duo has about 60 designs. The T-shirts, made to measure and sewn by Van Beveren herself go for some â,¬100 (R840), bathing suits are â,¬150.
Worldwide more than one million cases of breast cancer occur each year, according to a 2003 World Health Organisation report.
The Netherlands has the highest incidence of breast cancer in developed countries. The Dutch National Cancer Institute says 35 – 40% of women diagnosed with breast cancer in the Netherlands eventually undergo a mastectomy.
In the Netherlands the Lobstar foundation has around 300 members while some 70 women actually wear Van Beveren’s clothes. The youngest customer is 34 while the oldest is well into her seventies, Van der Post said.
For women who like Lobstar’s philosophy but cannot come to the atelier in the Netherlands, the pair offered up some tips. Look for asymmetrical clothes, do not try and hide in big clothes but try tight tops, wear layers, large prints, tops with frills, accessorize with brooches, necklaces or arrange shawls to fall over the missing breast.
Lobstar’s website (www.lobstar.nl) shows designs modelled by the two women themselves.
The women say they hardly face the disapproving reactions the hospital counsellor warned about.
”People just don’t see it and when they do they are positive, especially the men,” said Van der Post.
”You’re being straightforward and not kidding anybody when you show your body the way it is.” — Sapa-AFP