[E150] I Love You

World Mental Health Day - October 10^th, 2024

EBIT™ - Enjoy Being in Transition™ - the mental health culture brand, announce that John Skelton has joined as Cultural & Creative Director. The visionary artist, once a pillar of the fashion community and renowned as the original founder of LN-CC in London, returns bearing all after a 7-year hiatus with mental health struggles and addiction recovery. 

The announcement is entwined with the release of the Spring-Summer 2025 EBIT™ collection entitled simply 'I LOVE YOU' [E150], which Skelton co-created and in which he features in campaign imagery. Skelton describes the collection as "the quest for purity, clean, stripped back". Protective, cocoon like silhouettes wrap the body “for one’s fragile, shaky days”, with details as raw edges and loose stitching symbolizing the trauma lines of life. 

Geometry anchors the 50-piece range, with the octagon - a symbol of (re)birth and transition - used in a unique branding concept as well as patch-not-patch effects on denim. Every item in the gender fluid range is organic cotton and 100% Made in Italy, across denim, gabardine and jersey. Campaign images are lens by Italian photographers Mauro Maglione and Rosario Rex, with styling by rising Italian stylist Francesca Cisani.

Skelton has been collaborating with EBiT™ since January 2024, and his return via 'I LOVE YOU' [E150] serves as a profoundly cathartic, emotional and artistic release after years dealing with mental health issues, addiction and recovery. In late 2023, he initiated a community social media based project called @_h_e_a_r_t_e_d_ where he candidly describes - open heartedly - his journey with cocaine and alcohol addiction, depression, suicidal ideations and subsequent recovery mechanisms via sport and a drug free lifestyle. Clean now for 3 years, Skelton has found solace and creative freedom in the cocoon of EBiT™ and the release of ‘I LOVE YOU’ [E150].

Wholesale stockists at once include international department stores as Selfridges in the UK, as well as advanced multi-brand concept retailers as MODES across Europe and Number 4 in the Middle East. Private, invite only, showroom appointments were held in an intimate space in Milan, July 2024. In true EBiT™ philosophy, Buyers in the showroom were offered Fascia Touch, a unique practice using a powerful and transformative technique of mindful touch to help feel a profound connection with body and inner self, building greater presence, resilience, and authenticity. Fascia Touch is a treatment developed by Davina Ebikeme, founder of Doula Therapies with whom EBiT™ collaborated for the deeply personal experience. 

John Skelton quotation:

"It feels extremely important for me to now tell my story as since I have started my work with @_h_e_a_r_t_e_d_ I am fully aware of how many people are struggling with life, mental health issues,  addiction and suicidal ideation, just as I have been these past 12 years. I am so grateful to be here and for this opportunity with EBIT™ as Simon and I are totally aligned on all of these points and issues. Together, we are not creating a fashion brand. In fact, we are creating the absolute opposite. We are building a futuristic, multi- disciplinary platform that is rooted in freedom of feelings and emotions, openness and most importantly “change”, with clothing being just one of the mediums for our message."

EBIT™ was founded in 2021 by Simon Whitehouse and references artists as M/M (Paris), Soo Joo Park, Glen Luchford, Wilson Oryema, DJ John Digweed and Michel Gaubert amongst its collaborators. Whitehouse has publicly spoken of his chronic depression and survival of suicide in 2009 before he became CEO of JW Anderson in 2014, then CEO of Art Partner in 2018. Today, together with Skelton inside EBIT™, the British pair are based in Milan and are committed to progressing much needed compassion around mental health in the fashion community.

Simon Whitehouse quotation:

"John is John. Anyone that knows him knows he is always super in front, culturally and creatively, whether that be buying the Superbrands area at Selfridges 25 years ago, creative at the pioneering Oki-Ni, then of course founding LN-CC in Dalston, London. We're cut from the same cloth, both British northerners, and our friendship has been formed over 20 years through this rollercoaster that life and the fashion system takes and shakes everybody on. EBIT™ is an eco-system of collaborators with total artistic freedom that come and go, yet always bound by the feeling of solidarity with the mission. John will remain a constant partner, protected on his journey of recovery, and we are both resolute in our purpose."