[E200] Bipolar/Bicolor
March, 2024:
EBiT™, the mental health culture brand, releases imaged of its Autumn-Winter 2025 collection ‘BIPOLAR/BICOLOR’ [E200], on World Bipolar Day, celebrated each year on March 30th, the birthday of Vincent Van Gogh, who was posthumously diagnosed as having bipolar disorder.
Look-book images of the EBIT™ [E200] collection cast Rosie Viva and Joseph “Nana Kwame” Awuah-Darko (Okuntakinte), both of whom are artists that live with their bipolar disorder and both of whom have powerful individual public profiles in their advocacy.
In the 50-piece luxury casualwear range each item is entirely BICOLOR, a fresh design challenge for the brand and a pioneering concept that provides a framework and visual stimulation to encapsulate the strong energy and unique individual messages of both Rosie and Joseph.
Rosie Viva is a TV Presenter, model, event producer and mental health activist. Born in 1996, Rosie Van Amerogen’s (a.k.a. Rosie Viva) modelling career saw her working with brands as Gucci and Saint Laurent, as well as being a fit model with Phoebe Philo at Céline. In 2018 Rosie was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after she caused an evacuation of the entire of Stansted airport by hitting a fire alarm during a (as then undiagnosed) bipolar episode.
Rosie Viva quotes:
"Fashion, and expressing myself, is something which shifts entirely depending on what mood I am in. Whether it’s color, how things fit, or just the way certain clothes make me feel, Bipolar constantly gives me two different opinions on day to day choices. EBIT™ is a brand giving a space to meaningful stories and allowing both sides of my reality to be accepted and spoken about. Working with Simon and John has been a complete pleasure and I am excited to see EBIT™ grow into a space of its own within the fashion industry."
Rosie advocates a message of hope, via a healthy lifestyle (being an avid runner) and informed medication decisions. She is passionate about music and fitness for the positive impact these activities can have on our mental, physical and social wellbeing, and is spirited about encouraging and helping people talk about neurodiversity, especially young creatives. 2023 saw Rosie become the subject of a Channel 4 digital TV documentary charting her day-to-day experiences of living with bipolar.
The channel described her as the next ‘face of mental health’. Rosie’s latest book ‘Completely Normal & Totally Fine’ (Bloomsbury Publishing) is a conversational, self-deprecating and easy to read novel of what it’s like to manage life with bipolar. With her first-hand experience of knowing what it’s like to live with a neuro-diverse mind, Rosie wants to inform and educate her audience on the condition itself.
Okuntakinte is a Ghanaian-British artist, renowned for his “Dear Artists” series of post-it notes aiding artists, who has gained wider public attention for creating new colorful artworks based around an excel spreadsheet he made to track his bipolar disorder, a mental illness that can cause huge swings in a person’s moods, energy and concentration levels.
He allocated to every hour of the day/week a color that represented his feelings: red the most depressive, to pastel blue the most positive, and the excel sheet was a basis for his paintings.
Joseph Awuah-Darko quotes:
" We need to move beyond the ghettoized term of "awareness" when it comes to chronic mental conditions like bipolar disorder and push more towards radical "normalization". Because it is......normal."
More recently, Okuntakinte has spiked a sensational surge of attention since he posted a video on his Instagram, emotionally vulnerable and crying, announcing that he “moved to The Netherlands to pursue legal euthanasia to end his life due to the pain of his treatment resistant bipolar”.
His @okuntakinte Instagram account has tripled in three months to now +520k followers as #TheLastSupperProject – where Joseph is invited by strangers to “break bread” with him in a series of his “last suppers” - has gone viral. A recent invitation to a ‘Last Supper’ dinner for Joseph is from SZA, the American singer-songwriter.
The impetus of the ‘BIPOLAR/BICOLOR’ [E200] project supersedes the EBIT™ Spring-Summer 2025 range: ‘I LOVE YOU’ [E150], which John Skelton (Cultural & Creative Director of EBIT™ since 2024) described as ‘the quest for purity’. That initial [E150] concept was reflective of Skelton’s 3-year sobriety recovery after mental health struggles, and the collection, while fresh, was ‘mono’ and singular in terms of color and details. In short, it was pure, whole, one. EBIT™ notes that fission occurs when a neutron slams into a larger single atom, forcing it to excite and split into two smaller atoms – also known as fission products. Additional neutrons are also released that can initiate a chain reaction. When each atom splits, a tremendous amount of energy is released. Thus, providing the catalyst of ‘BIPOLAR/BICOLOR’ [E200], the latest emergence from EBIT™ for Autumn-Winter 2025. Neutrons and neurons. Every item in the range is BICOLOR, exciting and splitting around Rosie and Joseph, at once both ethereally powerful in their own lives with BIPOLAR disorder.
The BIPOLAR/BICOLOR [E200] collection itself is described as a postmodern casual mix-up, symbolic of both the times and the topic. Utilitarian denim and gabardine are blended with luxurious knitwear and progressive sportswear to create a unique vibe that cocoons all genders. Raw edges mirror the current emotions of society. Carefully considered details ubiquitous in the bicolor design challenge span from the more overt bicolor contrast arm cocoon sweater to the most subtle change in tone between jet black and midnight navy on a mixed material gabardine polo top. Every item is organic cotton and 100% Made in Italy. Campaign images are lens by rising photographer Mauro Maglione, with styling by respected Italian stylist Francesca Cisani. Footwear courtesy of Scholl, a foundational ode to the relationship between physical and mental health.
Private, invite only, showroom appointments were held in an intimate EBiT™ space in Paris, January 2025, with friend of the brand Indya Moore spontaneously treating buyers to intimate modelling and conversations. Wholesale stockists at once include advanced multi-brand concept stores as END (across UK and Italy), The Number 4 (Kuwait), Nighthawks (Japan), and more, in addition to existing partners as department store Selfridges in the UK, and MODES across Europe.
EBiT™ - Enjoy Being in Transition™ - 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. Clothing, music, photography and poetry are some of the artforms used as mediums to create curiosity and compassion into the spectrum of mental health conditions. 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.
Simon Whitehouse quotes:
"Real life human beings, such as Rosie and Joseph, are my heroes. The strength it takes to be openly vulnerable advocates around sensitive topics is a trait that I know provides solidarity to many people who may feel alone. That is the essence of EBiT™. With all due respect, I would never want a Kylie Jenner type celebrity in an EBiT™ campaign."
The vision of World Bipolar Day (WBD) is to bring world awareness to bipolar disorders and to eliminate social stigma. Having bipolar increases someone's risk of suicide by at least 20 times.
