Designing Balance Rhea Belle Apparel
Rhea Belle Apparel
By Mia James
The terms balance and symmetry come up frequently in conversation with New York City–based artist and apparel designer Jacqueline Skaggs. While both concepts are likely interests of one so creatively inclined, what’s ironic is that Jacqueline’s own anatomy is not balanced or symmetrical: one of her breasts has been removed as part of breast cancer treatment, and she has chosen not to undergo reconstruction. Still, Jacqueline acknowledges that balance and symmetry are often the key elements in what we find beautiful.
Following her mastectomy Jacqueline was confronted with the reality of merging the idea of balance and symmetry with her now one-breasted body, which led her to ask herself how she would choose to present herself to the world when her own physical form was now so clearly out of balance. Her answer has been to found her own clothing line, featuring contemporary, stylish apparel created especially for women who have undergone mastectomy without reconstruction (though it should be noted that Jacqueline’s styles are so fashionable that they appeal to women regardless of mastectomy history).
The line’s name, Rhea Belle, explains Jacqueline, is a play on the word rebel and is pronounced similarly. The moniker pays tribute to the rebel spirit behind her designs, a sensibility evident in her choice to forgo reconstruction and go on to create an apparel line that makes no apologies for a one-breasted physique; these garments are intended to flatter the postmastectomy form, Jacqueline stresses, not “camouflage” the absence of a breast.
Initially diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (commonly referred to as DCIS), Jacqueline underwent a lumpectomy. When she faced a second, more advanced diagnosis a few years later, a mastectomy was indicated; but for Jacqueline reconstruction was never an appealing option. “When I got my second diagnosis, reconstructive surgery wasn’t even on my plate,” she says, explaining that she never felt an emotional attachment to her breasts and therefore felt no need for further surgery. Nor, she says, did she feel compelled to undergo reconstruction to look “normal.” She quickly realized that this type of normal—how she appeared in clothing to the outside world—didn’t matter to her when her normal was now her postmastectomy, one-breasted form.
This brazen resolve, however, didn’t make up for practical considerations like finding clothing that would fit her new form. When she prepared to return to work in the art industry, Jacqueline struggled to find clothes that would be comfortable and flattering. “It took me two hours to dress for work because there was all this fussing and all this balancing and all this camouflage,” explains the designer of her efforts to dress in standard women’s apparel. Some items, like blouses with darts on each side, especially highlighted the challenge she now faced, and Jacqueline realized that she would need to completely change her approach to dressing. “When I put on my blouses, it really felt like I was in someone else’s closet—like wearing an older sibling’s clothes that just didn’t fit.”
After experimenting with various layering and draping techniques—such as draping a scarf over her right side (the site of the mastectomy)—Jacqueline began considering other solutions as well. “It dawned on me that symmetry is what my problem was with this clothing. Buttons shouldn’t be in the middle anymore, and I shouldn’t have a dart on the right side.”
Her next step was to begin finding clothes that she could, as she says, “renovate.” In one early example of this redesign approach, Jacqueline reworked a blouse that had ruffles on both sides. By moving the left-side ruffles to the right side, she says, she was able to “create not so much camouflage but a balance.”
As she moved forward, Jacqueline soon started designing garments “from scratch”—a daunting prospect initially, she says, as she was neither a seamstress nor a fashion designer. But she realized she wanted to create clothing that worked for her body and did not, as is too often the case in fashion, demand that her body work for the clothing. In addition, it soon became clear that wearing clothes that truly fit her body had a profoundly positive psychological impact. “If I made clothing that looked like it was made for this [one-breast] architecture, I would somehow present myself as something that belonged in the world.”
This architectural approach continues to inspire Jacqueline’s designs. She focuses, for instance, on “perfect placement” of elements—as an architect would place a window—to create the desired effect. Some of the elements she uses include draping, ruffles, and carefully placed openings in fabrics—all positioned to draw the eye in a certain way so that the overall impression is of symmetry and balance. But she frequently stresses that Rhea Belle garments are not about covering a flaw. Jacqueline’s garments will flatter women who have undergone single or bilateral mastectomy, but her distinctly creative and modern designs will appeal to all women.
Jacqueline says she often hears from women who wear her clothes, who say they feel empowered in Rhea Belle apparel. Though the designs are progressive and flattering, it’s likely the intention behind them that imparts this feeling of self-assurance, as each design is created to work for the body rather than confine the body to an impractical style. Rhea Belle garments thus honor a woman’s body, no matter what changes it has endured, and in doing so celebrate her survival.
Rhea Belle apparel can be purchased online at www.Rheabelle.etsy.com.
