[E039] Open Casting Call
4th Dec 2025:
Multidisciplinary brand EBiT™ has an ethos of mental health baked into the core of its purpose. The latest project to emerge is a new website and e-commerce platform – www.enjoybeingintransition.com – which acts as a medium for an ‘Open Casting Call’ [E039] for new creative talent & models who have experiences with mental health.
Instantly, the newly launched platform is a showcase for a curation of EBiT™ clothing collections, available to shop and deliver globally, and brought to life by models in a collaboration with Casting Director Irene Manicone. The website overall provides a glimpse into the world of EBiT™ including a kaleidoscopic catalogue of every EBiT™ creative project to date, the largest consolidation of mental health resources on the internet, and a radically transparent insight into the ethics of the fashion industry.
In the collaboration with Manicone, the inaugural casting on the new e-commerce platform gives an introduction to three new faces: Nina, Leonardo and Elena, whose experience with mental health is highlighted in the product description ‘add to cart’ section of the e-commerce store – at once humanizing the commercial experience. Supporting and anchoring the crew is friend of the EBiT™ brand Jordan Anderson, who is a Creative Director and Fashion & Culture Journalist, based in Milan. Anderson’s work often magnifies and explores political themes in and outside the fashion industry including race, gender, identity & brand and cultural ethics.
The brief for the initial iteration of casting was clear:
“Let’s find fresh faces, new talent, aspiring models, who have not yet ventured into appearances with brands and yet also are open and willing to share snippets of their experiences with mental health. That’s our people: fresh, strong, real, open, true…”
– Simon Whitehouse, founder of EBiT™
Styling is intentionally fun and a participatory, collaborative affair, with models invited to choose the color of their (100% natural Alpaca) socks to wear with each look as a way to engage color as a mood relaxant, break the ice and help the new talent feel at home for their first time on set. Images were lensed by Milan based photographer Mauro Maglione.
About Jordan Anderson:
Born and raised in Kingston Jamaica, Jordan Anderson is a creative director & a fashion and culture journalist who is currently based in Milan. His work often magnifies & explores political themes in and outside the fashion industry including race, gender, identity & brand and cultural ethics. He is the founder of My Queer Blackness, My Black Queerness (MQBMBQ), which is an online platform which explores Black Queer identity through fashion, music, art and all other creative forms. Anderson is editor-at-large of NSS magazine and a contributor to a variety of publications including Document Journal, A Magazine Curated By, Vogue Italia among others. With regards to mental health, Anderson highlights the importance and belief of taking care of oneself mentally as much as any other part of the body. He openly regularly takes therapy and meditation as seriously as going to the gym, or the nutritionist or to the doctor for a check-up and recommends this for all.
About the debutant talents:
Elena:
As a teenager Elena, who is Italian, struggled with depression and severe anxiety attacks. Unable to express herself, it took her a long time to understand what was happening. She was scared and too proud to ask for help, feeling like nobody would understand her. When it became debilitating – long days not able to get out of bed, stopping attendance at school – she started therapy which helped her a lot. Elena references the worst part being that she couldn't even find any sense or reason to justify what she was feeling or find the will to try to fix it. As Elena grew older, she became more aware of her emotions, and the people around her helped her a lot to overcome and manage these challenges. Even now, she says “I still have good days and bad days, and I know that’s something I’ll always have to face, but I approach it very differently than before! The simple act of talking about it has helped me immensely.”
Leonardo:
Lives with mild and intermittent depression, after a period of injury affected his potential soccer career. At the time of the injury it was quite a deep period, two or three months. He was unable, not wanting, to be with the people usually he loves, instead internalizing the happenings mainly lying in bed with extreme lack of energy. Sessions with a psychologist helped Leonardo regain his true self, however he is aware now of depression and has the tools to manage it when it comes. Leonardo is of Italian and Cuban descent.
Nina:
Nina’s experiences with mental health are more indirect, in that during her time currently at university away from her home country of France, the majority of Nina’s friends and community are feeling sensitive around their mental health. “So many people are feeling anxious, stressed, struggling with depression and anxiety. It seems nobody feels safe. At its worst, there are several people where the anxiety is manifesting into eating disorders like anorexia nervosa”. Nina advises that several of her community are seeking support through therapy.
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The product section of the site showcases a curation of recent EBiT™ collections, catalogued by ‘E’ (Enjoy) numbers as opposed to traditional labels of ‘Autumn-Winter’ or ‘Spring-Summer’. Key categories include knitwear, denim, and a luxurious Italian gabardine fabric, exclusive to EBiT™. All EBiT™ clothing is 100% Made in Italy, natural fabrics, male, female and all genders inclusive, fits most body types and comes with signature 66cm long light blue EBiT™ label branding. Quantities produced range from 12 to 24 pieces per item. These are the only items produced and therefore each item is immediately a collector’s item intentionally designed and constructed to be treasured for many years and with high resale potential value.
In contrast to the systematic structure of the fashion industry and relentless pressure to produce several seasonal collections per year EBiT™, on the other hand, creates projects on impulse. EBiT™ clothing collections are a constant evolution updated from project to project - a postmodern, chic-casual mix up, reflective of both the times and the topic. Each concept rooted around mental health. Each collection evolving from the previous one - upcycling materials, mixing materials, blocks, weights, graphics - as which fit the concept of the next project, not what fits a markdown or media structure in the traditional model of over production and over consumption.
An illustration of this is the recent collection created in collaboration with John Skelton entitled ‘I Love You’ [E150] which was completely mono-color, organic fabrics and stripped back in every sense to reflect Skelton’s mental health struggles and recovery from addiction (Skelton also featured in campaign imagery). Spontaneously, the base of this collection then evolved into the next project [E200] ‘Bipolar/Bicolor in an open exploration of bipolar disorder, with a subtle design challenge to take the ‘I Love You’ [E150] mono-color collection as a foundation and to sensitively make every single piece again in a sophisticated bicolor or bi-textural fabric application. Casting then followed for the [E200] concept featuring Rosie Viva (@rosieviva) and Joseph “Nana Kwame” Awuah-Darko (@okuntakinte), whom both are open in their life with bipolar disorder and advocate for the topic is very contrasting ways.
The inaugural EBiT™ web platform now serves as the home of the brand - Enjoy Being in Transition™ - providing a deeper understanding of the concept and raison d’être. EBiT™ was conceived in the upheaval of the pandemic, a time of isolation and struggle for many, but until this date has been intentionally abstract in the seeding of its odyssey of creative and artistic expressions. The entropic state of EBiT™ is natural, organic, and with complete artistic freedom, citing explicit homage to the cultural impact of Factory Records, Manchester in the 1980s and '90s. Whitehouse cites the ambition of EBiT™ to be an example of ‘good capitalism’ (or anti ‘extreme capitalism’ in a way) - with the absolute mission to progress compassion and normalize conversations around mental health in the fashion community.
In a statement and ongoing commitment EBiT™ invites new faces, fresh talent, who have direct or indirect experiences with mental health to connect confidentially with the brand to explore opportunities for future creative and/or commercial projects: contact@enjoybeingintransition.com.
The opening of the EBiT™ e-platform is framed as ‘direct with community’ as opposed to the challenging current state of the wholesale sector. The move signals the intention of EBiT™ to connect directly with its growing “offline” community away from social media. Social media is, overall, bad for our mental health.
With Love,
EBiT™
