KEY POINTS:
When fashion designer Cybele Wiren was asked to design a T-shirt to help raise awareness about breast cancer, the mythological phoenix bird sprung to mind.
"It's an appropriate motif and is known as a symbol of hope, beauty, strength and renewal," she said yesterday at the launch of the 2008 Glassons Breast Cancer Research Trust T-shirt collection.
The T-shirt campaign has been running for five years and has raised $2.8 million for research into breast cancer. This year, eight designs are on offer from designers Karen Walker, Cybele, Kate Sylvester, Trelise Cooper, Zambesi, Ruby, Chris Cherry from Workshop, and Jun Arita, who won a competition open to the public to design a T-shirt for the campaign.
The T-shirts went on sale yesterday and cost $29.99 with $10 from each sale going to the trust. Money raised from the 2008 campaign will go towards funding the recent appointment of Professor Peter Lobie at Auckland University - the country's first professor of breast cancer research.
Musician Carly Binding performed a short acoustic set, while the designers signed T-shirts.
Fashion student Abby Oey, 19, was one of many people who stood in line to get their T-shirts signed. "I'm glad to be helping a good cause ... I'm up from Dunedin so I'm stoked to be here when all the designers are here," she said.
Designer Trelise Cooper said the four-leaf clover provided inspiration for her design.
"[It's] a universally accepted symbol of good luck. One leaf is for faith, the second for hope, the third for love and the fourth for luck ... I turned the fourth leaf into a heart, as it is my heartfelt wish that we find a cure for breast cancer in our lifetime."
