INTRODUCING, BARING ALL

INTRODUCING, BARING ALL

At Lucy & Yak we strive to create comfortable, joyful clothing for every body. In fact, ‘every body’ is at the core of everything we do. Whatever your age, size or gender, we believe that your body and what you decide to do with it is yours to own. To us it’s simple: your body, your rules. 

At Lucy & Yak we strive to create comfortable, joyful clothing for every body. In fact, ‘every body’ is at the core of everything we do. Whatever your age, size or gender, we believe that your body and what you decide to do with it is yours to own. To us it’s simple: your body, your rules. 

In the past, we’ve tackled vulva diversity, celebrating them for all their varied beauty. This year, we’re tackling the topic of breasts & chests, in particular, the policing of. 


We believe all breasts & chests, however you identify, have the right to be seen and celebrated. And so for our latest campaign, we’re celebrating the breasts & chests that might usually be censored both online and IRL. 


Let’s normalise talking about breasts & chests in all their forms to help us understand the effect censorship has on our society. 


This season, we’re Baring All.

The print

A special campaign requires an extra special print. And so, we wanted to approach the design process for this print in a different way to those previous - making it more ‘real’ through the use of photography. In the past we had tried various chest illustrations, but they never felt quite right. After a trip to Barcelona, our design team returned feeling inspired by the exhibitions they had seen with artists experimenting with photography. We also knew that we wanted this collection to follow the conversational style of our vulva campaigns, to talk about another part of our bodies that remains a taboo topic. And so, they pitched their next idea: a photography led print featuring a variety of breasts & chests from real people. Importantly, we wanted to use our products and platforms to feature the breasts & chests that you don’t see everyday in the mainstream media; to celebrate them and in turn, help our community to celebrate and embrace their own breasts & chests. 


We reached out to Lydia Reeves, an incredible artist we worked with previously on our 2022 vulva campaign. As an artist creating vulva and chest casts, Lydia suggested people she thought would be perfect for this campaign: all with different breasts & chests and stories to tell. 

The photoshoot took place and the design team got to work with the inspiring imagery to create the print at the center of this campaign, the ‘Baring All’ print.

The collection

Featuring some of our classic Lucy & Yak Original dungarees, the collection also features our Beau & Murphy suit, retro-inspired Patti dress, Benny tee and monochrome print underwear. The collection is made from conscious materials such as GOTs Certified Organic Cotton, with £1.50 from every product to be donated to one of our three carefully selected organisations: CoppaFeel!, Not A Phase and People vs Big Tech. We’re very proud to partner with these organisations to raise further awareness around the amazing work they are doing. 

The campaign

Our campaign photoshoot took place in October 2023 and featured five incredible models, each with a very different story to tell. We heard from all five of them about their relationships with their chests and any advice they had to help people feel more comfortable in their own skin. You can watch the full campaign film here. 


As a team we knew that there was so much to explore when it comes to breasts & chests: the over-sexualistion of them; shame around breastfeeding in public; experiences of having big, small, saggy, asymmetrical breasts; stories from breast cancer survivors and previvors and mastectomies; trans and non binary folk and their relationships with their chests; and so many more. Here we realised we could only touch the surface with the expanse of these stories but as always, we invite our community to share theirs to help raise awareness. 


There was one thing apparent throughout all of this. While we had all of our beautiful photography and stories to explore, we would have some difficulty getting it out into the public sphere. We weren’t able to show our print on billboards (or even talk about these chests!), we were concerned that posts across social media would be deleted or result in our accounts being shadowbanned. 


When it comes to social media, we like to think we’re in control of what content we’re seeing, but in reality AI algorithms hold much of the power. And, as it turns out, these AI systems are prone to mistakes and bias – mistakes that negatively impact and over-censor women, plus-size people, sex-positive accounts, non-binary and trans people on social media.


As a brand with an incredible community both in real life and online; Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are important spaces for us to connect with them. And so while we understood that some chests would likely be deemed acceptable to the mainstream media and AI algorithms (see Calvin Klein’s latest Jeremy Allen White advert), we understood that this could directly impact our campaign, with many of the breasts & chests that we were celebrating in all their varied beauty at risk of censorship. 


To understand more about censorship bias and how we got here, you can read our latest blog from Dr Carolina Are, who is the pole dancing academic, activist and content creator behind the @bloggeronpole social media accounts and blog.

The charities

Donating £1.50 from every Baring All product, we have chosen three charities to partner with, to support their incredible work. 


Firstly, CoppaFeel! who is the first youth-focussed breast health awareness charity. They exist to give everyone the best possible chance of surviving breast cancer by educating young people on the importance of getting to know your body. Baring All celebrates all breasts & chests, which we believe need to be seen, as the more comfortable we all are with talking and seeing every kind of breast & chest, the more acceptance there will be, in turn saving lives. 


Not A Phase is a trans-led, grassroots charity committed to uplifting and improving the lives of trans+ adults, through awareness campaigning, social projects and funding trans+ lead initiatives. The charity aims to give the trans+ and gender non-conforming community space to thrive, whilst working with organisations on D&I strategies to promote positive change. 


Finally, People vs Big Tech is an open network of civil society organisations working together to challenge the power and abuses of Big Tech. Their first priority is to ensure today’s tech titans are not allowed to be the dominant designers of tomorrow’s technology regulations. Navigating censorship around Baring All because of the breasts & chests that we are platforming has showed us once again that we are not in control of our social networks and how important People vs Big Tech's work is in challenging the monopolies of power from the likes of Meta and Google. 

Ultimately, we want everyone to feel comfortable and happy in their own skin. At Lucy & Yak we passionately believe that seeing all bodies, hearing all experiences and celebrating them all is where acceptance begins. When creating this print we hadn’t quite understood how powerful it would become - that one of the only places where we wouldn’t be censored would be on our clothes themselves. And so, we’ll be wearing this collection with pride. 


This season, we’re #BaringAll

In the past, we’ve tackled vulva diversity, celebrating them for all their varied beauty. This year, we’re tackling the topic of breasts & chests, in particular, the policing of. 


We believe all breasts & chests, however you identify, have the right to be seen and celebrated. And so for our latest campaign, we’re celebrating the breasts & chests that might usually be censored both online and IRL. 


Let’s normalise talking about breasts & chests in all their forms to help us understand the effect censorship has on our society. 


This season, we’re Baring All.

The print

A special campaign requires an extra special print. And so, we wanted to approach the design process for this print in a different way to those previous - making it more ‘real’ through the use of photography. In the past we had tried various chest illustrations, but they never felt quite right. After a trip to Barcelona, our design team returned feeling inspired by the exhibitions they had seen with artists experimenting with photography. We also knew that we wanted this collection to follow the conversational style of our vulva campaigns, to talk about another part of our bodies that remains a taboo topic. And so, they pitched their next idea: a photography led print featuring a variety of breasts & chests from real people. Importantly, we wanted to use our products and platforms to feature the breasts & chests that you don’t see everyday in the mainstream media; to celebrate them and in turn, help our community to celebrate and embrace their own breasts & chests. 


We reached out to Lydia Reeves, an incredible artist we worked with previously on our 2022 vulva campaign. As an artist creating vulva and chest casts, Lydia suggested people she thought would be perfect for this campaign: all with different breasts & chests and stories to tell. 

The photoshoot took place and the design team got to work with the inspiring imagery to create the print at the center of this campaign, the ‘Baring All’ print.

The collection

Featuring some of our classic Lucy & Yak Original dungarees, the collection also features our Beau & Murphy suit, retro-inspired Patti dress, Benny tee and monochrome print underwear. The collection is made from conscious materials such as GOTs Certified Organic Cotton, with £1.50 from every product to be donated to one of our three carefully selected organisations: CoppaFeel!, Not A Phase and People vs Big Tech. We’re very proud to partner with these organisations to raise further awareness around the amazing work they are doing. 

The campaign

Our campaign photoshoot took place in October 2023 and featured five incredible models, each with a very different story to tell. We heard from all five of them about their relationships with their chests and any advice they had to help people feel more comfortable in their own skin. You can watch the full campaign film here. 


As a team we knew that there was so much to explore when it comes to breasts & chests: the over-sexualistion of them; shame around breastfeeding in public; experiences of having big, small, saggy, asymmetrical breasts; stories from breast cancer survivors and previvors and mastectomies; trans and non binary folk and their relationships with their chests; and so many more. Here we realised we could only touch the surface with the expanse of these stories but as always, we invite our community to share theirs to help raise awareness. 


There was one thing apparent throughout all of this. While we had all of our beautiful photography and stories to explore, we would have some difficulty getting it out into the public sphere. We weren’t able to show our print on billboards (or even talk about these chests!), we were concerned that posts across social media would be deleted or result in our accounts being shadowbanned. 


When it comes to social media, we like to think we’re in control of what content we’re seeing, but in reality AI algorithms hold much of the power. And, as it turns out, these AI systems are prone to mistakes and bias – mistakes that negatively impact and over-censor women, plus-size people, sex-positive accounts, non-binary and trans people on social media.


As a brand with an incredible community both in real life and online; Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are important spaces for us to connect with them. And so while we understood that some chests would likely be deemed acceptable to the mainstream media and AI algorithms (see Calvin Klein’s latest Jeremy Allen White advert), we understood that this could directly impact our campaign, with many of the breasts & chests that we were celebrating in all their varied beauty at risk of censorship. 


To understand more about censorship bias and how we got here, you can read our latest blog from Dr Carolina Are, who is the pole dancing academic, activist and content creator behind the @bloggeronpole social media accounts and blog.

The charities

Donating £1.50 from every Baring All product, we have chosen three charities to partner with, to support their incredible work. 


Firstly, CoppaFeel! who is the first youth-focussed breast health awareness charity. They exist to give everyone the best possible chance of surviving breast cancer by educating young people on the importance of getting to know your body. Baring All celebrates all breasts & chests, which we believe need to be seen, as the more comfortable we all are with talking and seeing every kind of breast & chest, the more acceptance there will be, in turn saving lives. 


Not A Phase is a trans-led, grassroots charity committed to uplifting and improving the lives of trans+ adults, through awareness campaigning, social projects and funding trans+ lead initiatives. The charity aims to give the trans+ and gender non-conforming community space to thrive, whilst working with organisations on D&I strategies to promote positive change. 


Finally, People vs Big Tech is an open network of civil society organisations working together to challenge the power and abuses of Big Tech. Their first priority is to ensure today’s tech titans are not allowed to be the dominant designers of tomorrow’s technology regulations. Navigating censorship around Baring All because of the breasts & chests that we are platforming has showed us once again that we are not in control of our social networks and how important People vs Big Tech's work is in challenging the monopolies of power from the likes of Meta and Google. 

 Ultimately, we want everyone to feel comfortable and happy in their own skin. At Lucy & Yak we passionately believe that seeing all bodies, hearing all experiences and celebrating them all is where acceptance begins. When creating this print we hadn’t quite understood how powerful it would become - that one of the only places where we wouldn’t be censored would be on our clothes themselves. And so, we’ll be wearing this collection with pride. 


This season, we’re #BaringAll