TOLEDO, Ohio — Shopping for clothes is tough for a lot of people — trying to find the perfect fit with comfort and style can be a challenge.
The issue is even more frustrating for women who’ve battled breast cancer and have undergone mastectomies.
“Women’s clothing is designed to have an area to pull out in the front and when it doesn’t pull out, it ends up just looking very baggy, boxy and just not flattering,” Suzy Gibbons said.
The south Toledo wife, mother and grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in May of 2018 at the age of 53. She was in New York City on a business trip when she discovered the lump.
"My sister had two years previously died of breast cancer, my mom had breast cancer, my aunt, lots of breast cancer in our family and I just 100% knew what it was," she said.
Gibbons was aggressive in fighting it. During chemotherapy treatments for the breast cancer, she developed a breathing issue and later learned she had primary site lung cancer.
A portion of her lung was removed. Next, she had a double mastectomy.
After several canceled surgeries, Gibbons decided not to go through with reconstruction surgery.
“It was like a huge boulder was lifted off of me.”
Early in her recovery, she was wearing comfortable clothes but when she decided to get up, go out and dress up she said it wasn’t a good look.
“I never really thought about it until it was time to really put on something nicer than a sweatshirt or a button-down flannel,” she said. “Then I started to look around and think, 'Wow, a lot of this stuff doesn’t work for me anymore.'”
She decided to start a blog, "Suzy Talk" and her daughter helped her get on social media. The topics vary. She talks about her story of cancer and also why she sees a need to improve fashion choices for women who’ve decided to forego reconstruction.
“I’m not trying to hide the way I look, it’s not that I’m trying to hide the fact that I don’t have breasts, I’m trying to look nice with the look that I have decided to go with,” Gibbons said.
Along the way, Gibbons has learned what works best. It can be layering with cardigans or looking for tops that are more fitted instead of straight up and down. She says it’s not about designing an entirely new line of clothing.
“I want to be the voice that says, 'This dress is beautiful. This one little tweak would really help a big community of people,'” she said.
Her goal is to reach people locally, regionally and nationally.
Gibbons said she is getting the attention of larger organizations but understands the movement is going to take time.