Fashion / designer labels
New streetwear brand defies labels
At the end of 2019, Cat Ransome, a mother of three from Bristol, created a new streetwear brand with her oldest son, Leo.
Cat saw that Leo was experiencing mental health challenges due to being small for his age, and not being able to wear adult designer clothes like his friends, instead having to wear kids clothes into his early teens.
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Cat created Backwards Brain to abolish the generic clothes labelling system so that no ones is made to feel like like they are just a size.
The brand gets rid of small, medium and large sizes and age brackets, instead using body measurements and categorising sizing by colour. Backwards Brain caters for smaller teens , larger teens and standard adult sizes.
“I’m on a mission to get the powers that be in retail to stand up and take notice of the amount of young people they are affecting by their sizing polices and I need other parents to come together to support me so we can push for the need for change,” says Backwards Brain founder, Cat
Cat has co-ordinated the design, manufacturing and marketing of the clothing range, and is working with Jokoto Tailoring, based in Old Market, and Squared Roots, based in Lawrence Hill.
Cat doesn’t want to just change the system of clothes sizing, but hopes to raise awareness around adolescent mental health. In light of this, Backwards Brain donates some profits to Off The Record, an Old Market-based charity that supports young children going through mental health struggles which helped Leo in the past.
Cat is now campaigning for more to be done in mainstream retail to address some of the challenges faced by generic sizing, saying: “Body size and appearance can have a real impact on adolescent self-esteem and mental health, especially in the age of social media, and young people already have more than enough to worry about.”
Parents can take part in her survey on the Backwards Brain website, and the results will be used within her petition to The British Retail Consortium, campaigning for more to be done in mainstream retail to address some of the challenges faced by generic sizing.
All photos courtesy of Chocolate PR
Read more: Student fashion event to raise money for mental health sufferers
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