Monki teams up with the BDD Foundation

Fashion brand Monki teams up with the BDD Foundation to promote self love and positive affirmation…

The collaboration will see the launch of  a limited-edition underwear collection featuring positive affirmation messages, serving as a reminder to the wearer that they are unique, and that they are more than their reflection and what they see on the outside. The messages are reflected the correct way when looking at the mirror for an instant confidence boost and an encouraging self-love reminder.

“The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of the disorder and how it affects a person’s psyche, wellbeing and self-confidence. As a brand which creates fashion for girls and young women, we have a responsibility to our community to be as inclusive and transparent as possible when it comes to body and beauty representation. Diverse casting and transparent retouch guidelines are two of the areas we have worked with since day one. That’s why this ongoing collaboration with BDDF is important to us — we strive to empower women to feel good about themselves without aspiring to unattainable norms.”

Simone Van Starkenburg, Brand & Marketing Director at Monki

To help educate people about BDD, alongside the capsule collection launch, Monki has showcased a series of personal portraits from three media volunteers who have suffered from BDD and have used their experiences to  inform the public about this under-diagnosed and distressing disorder.

They describe how it started, how it manifested, their lowest point, and how they got through to the other side. They also share advice on how to support someone living with BDD.  The purpose is to inform, educate and encourage sufferers to seek help, and to never give up…

Changing the law

This collaboration adds to earlier work supported by Monki; a petition directed at the EU Parliament calling for transparency on altered images on social media was started at Change.org. This pushed for changes to ensure that organisations, companies, and influencers are legally required to state when images have been manipulated for paid content online.

A paid social campaign (under the title Selfie-Love-Initiative) included a downloadable set of ‘purpose driven filters’ promoting realistic beauty standards – was set up to drive people to the petition. Our aim was to then engage with a prominent MP to take up the issue in Parliament. Dr Luke Evans MP has introduced the Digitally Altered Body Image Bill to UK Parliament last year.

The BDD-Foundation has since contributed to a parliamentary report on the impact of body image which came out in August 2022. We haven’t changed the law yet, but we are getting there! This work was highly commended in the Festival of Media’s inaugural Cause Campaign Awards – the full story can be found at our website here.

Story: Monki teams up with the BDD Foundation