Royalty and fashion join breast cancer battle

By Hillary Rodham Clinton

What brought Princess Diana, Washington Post chair Katharine Graham, Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour, fashion designer Ralph Lauren and dozens of his colleagues to breakfast at the White House this week?.

Clothes and high fashion, of course. But also the hundreds of thousands of women living with breast cancer across America.

For the past two years, top fashion designers have spearheaded a campaign to raise funds for breast cancer research and treatment. It makes sense for an industry that caters mostly to American women to take on one of the leading threats to their health.

In 1994, I had the honor of helping kick off the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign at the White House. The campaign, created by the Council of Fashion Designers of America, was a great success, raising more than US$2 million through the sale of 400,000 T-shirts emblazoned with campaign logo.

Many of the same designers who were so crucial in that campaign's success were back at the White House earlier this week. This time, they came for breakfast to celebrate the beginning of SuperSale 1996, a clothing sale to raise money for the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research at Georgetown Medical Center here in Washington, D.C. The designers have donated hundreds of dresses, skirts, slacks, blouses and other items to the sale, which is being sponsored by The Washington Post, Vogue magazine and Ralph Lauren.

Needless to say, the East Room was filled with people whose names you usually find sewn into waistbands and shirt collars. I have never seen members of my staff so worried about what they would wear to work. And the entire White Houses was abuzz with excitement about the guest of honor, who flew in from England to serve as the honorary chair of the fund-raiser. It isn't every day that you have the Princess of Wales over for herbed eggs, roasted tomatoes and Maryland crab.

But the morning was about more than breakfast and style. It was about the one in eight American women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes. It's disease that affects many of the women we love -- our mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, colleagues and best friends. It's a disease that touches all of us.

Breast cancer also touched the fashion industry. When Nina Hyde, the legendary fashion editor of The Washington Post, died of breast cancer in 1990, the people she wrote about and worked with were galvanized to conquer the disease. Her death spurred members of the fashion industry to take a more active role in the fight against breast cancer.

I never met Nina Hyde, but I've heard many moving and funny stories about her. A woman who wore little makeup and a favorite Swatch watch she once picked up at the airport, Hyde befriended both established and unknown designers from all over the world. She knew supermodels and suburban moms, kept an eye out for the latest fashion trends at chic parties in Paris and on the streets of Washington, and advised her faithful readers. A mentor to a generation of aspiring writers and fashion editors, she was also a wife and the mother of two daughters.

When Hyde found out she had breast cancer, she didn't give in to it. She worked fervently to call attention to the disease and raise money for research. In 1989, The Washington Post, her good friend Ralph Lauren and 16 other designers established the world- class cancer research center at Georgetown University that bears her name.

The Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer research represents the fashion industry's continuing commitment to eliminating the disease. The center was the beneficiary not only of this week's fund-raiser but of several other creative efforts organized by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

The Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign and T-shirts have been licensed abroad and are raising money for breast cancer research in Brazil, Argentina and Great Britain. The council is planning to take the campaign -- and the cause we championed at the breakfast with Princess Diana this week -- to Japan, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Russia.

It was a hopeful morning at the White House. One cause -- the fight against breast cancer -- had brought an entire industry and a Princess together. They, in turn, showed the women and families living with breast cancer that many people do care and will never stop looking for a cure.

-- Creators Syndicate