[E100] Psycho Penpals

May, 2024 - release:

As international mental health awareness month begins, EBiT™ announces its second seasonal release: PSYCHO PENPALS [E100], the socially minded brand’s Autumn/Winter 2024 collection.

Following TRUE STORIES [E050], EBiT’s Spring/Summer 2024 debut, the new range deepens the label’s commitment to sparking dialogue about – and, perhaps, to fundamentally changing – how the fashion community addresses and communicates around mental health.

PSYCHO PENPALS [E100] reclaims an often “negative” term – “psycho” – and socializes it, celebrating freedom of expression and shared intimacies through the idea of one-to-one correspondence. The collection title evokes the many ways in which mental health challenges continue to be unconsciously dismissed in our everyday speech and invites us all to open our minds to new modes of communication and connection. The word “PSYCHO” – sometimes punk, and sometimes taboo – appears subtly or boldly in print on a selection of garments, including highlight embroidered inverse pleat dungarees, tri-color blocked t-shirts and fingerless gloves, representing sincerity and pride in diversity, and in divergence.

Inspired by EBiT™ founder Simon Whitehouse’s conversations with friend designer Clark Sabbat, PSYCHO PENPALS [E100] is a call for off-line engagement through correspondence like letter-writing and note-passing – forms removed from the alternately overwhelming and oppressive arena of social media, with all its pressures and performance.

The collection encourages EBIT’s community to share unspoken vulnerabilities, idle thoughts, challenging feelings, and even simple musings or ideas in direct, unvarnished ways with their peers: candid correspondence, written by hand (or simply from the heart). The idea is that taking the time for penpals creates space for catharsis, processing, and relationship that can be treasured – an antidote in a way to some of the toxic messaging via social media, and an envelope of comfort that even the most embracing garment could never quite approximate.

EBiT™ channels that need, however, with cocoon shapes and oversized items, frayed items and “raw,” chewed edges, and layered pleats that symbolize and navigate the emotional uncertainties of creative life. Clothing, for the brand, is a medium for ideas, support, and discourse. Community and solace are the material end games. 

“There really is no such thing as random. I believe everything and everyone that happens to you is for a reason. It’s up to you to figure why someone or something comes or leaves your life. There are those you can take the journey with and once I got to speaking with Simon I knew the journey would be interesting.”

– Clark Sabbat

The PSYCHO PENPALS [E100] look book casts designer Sabbat alongside model and content creator Amina LadyMya, who featured in EBiT™’s debut TRUE STORIES campaign. In another debut, the campaign casts artist and doctor Giovanni Pigliapochi, whose medical work with his team of psychologists and psychiatrists is dedicated to helping improve patients wellbeing in the spectrum of mental health conditions from autism to major depression, from schizophrenia to borderline disorders.

“There are memes like, ‘Look at that person - just sitting there reading a book / writing a letter like a proper psycho! haha’, or episodes in common daily chat referring to ‘real psychopath behavior’ in a flippant almost comical way. These instances, insensitive at best, can be triggering on an emotional level to those with real-life experiences of mental health. I mean, have you ever heard the howling, harrowing screams of someone in psychosis breakdown at 4am in the morning? Part of this project provokes a respect, a consciousness, almost reclamation, of the vocabulary we are using around mental health (“retarded”, “get the razor blades out”, “schizo”, et al), and part of this project is a manifestation of the relationship between Clark and I. Modern day penpals as it were, Clark and I sharing every so often our vulnerabilities around mental health to each other in intimate treasurable conversations and notes. I feel there is something healing and cathartic amongst it all, which may resonate with others.”

– Simon Whitehouse

With fashion direction by Italy’s emerging stylist Francesca Cisani and photography by image maker Mauro Maglione, whose recent collaborators include Miu Miu and Ferragamo, EBiT™’s PSYCHO PENPALS [E100] campaign features footwear courtesy of UGG. 

The project will appear as a printed publication alongside a pen-and-paper stationary drop, set to launch with the AW24 arrival in store. 

PSYCHO PENPALS [E100] will be available exclusively at MODES online and brick and mortar boutiques in Paris and Milan.

[E100] Psycho Penpals casts artist and doctor Giovanni Pigliapochi, whose medical work with his team of psychologists and psychiatrists is dedicated to helping improve patients wellbeing in the spectrum of mental health conditions from autism to major depression, from schizophrenia to borderline disorders.

With love,

EBiT™