Bras For A Cause

Every three minutes, a woman’s life changes. That’s because every three minutes, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.

Some days, it is Hampton Bays-based gynecologist Geri Schmitt delivering the devastating, and sometimes fatal, news.

“It is always a tough thing to do and my heart goes out to all my patients,“ she wrote in an email last week from a surgical mission in Chile. “Anything I can be a part of that helps those women with their battle, I am proud to be a part of.”

And so, for the first time, she designed and constructed a bra—doubling as a work of art—that will hit the catwalk, being worn by a live female model on Thursday, April 18, at the fourth annual Reconstructed Bra Fashion Show & Auction, to be held at the Southampton Social Club.

All proceeds benefit breast health organizations Lucia’s Angels, the Coalition for Women’s Cancers at Southampton Hospital and the Ellen Hermanson Breast Center, according to organizer Stacy Quarty, as well as support the “LI2Day Walk for Breast Cancer” team Heaven Can Wait.

Typically the bras fetch between $250 and $20,000 each, she reported. The benefit is one of the largest fundraisers of the year for the local cause, said Ms. Quarty, who is president of Lucia’s Angels and vice president of the Coalition for Women’s Cancers.

“The bras are creative and fun. Sky’s the limit,” she said last week during a telephone interview. “We’re really surprised to see, every year, so many new and crazy designs. Most of them hang on the wall or you put them in a case. I have two at home myself. My husband’s like, ‘Let’s take them out and play with them once in a while,’” she laughed.

This year, artist and Southampton part-timer Amy Musto adorned her bra, “Juxtapose,” in found driftwood, screws and bolts. Sag Harbor resident Beverly Schanzer crafted two sheeps’ heads out of her bra’s cups, sewed tails to the sides and created a meadow planted with flowers around the back. Its title is “Bra Bra Black Sheep.” Over the course of several days, Hampton Bays-based bra designer Christine Laureano strung glass and plastic beads onto her piece of lingerie, creating a wearable French-style chandelier titled “Sparkle & Shine.”

“A chandelier is a centerpiece to a room. It is valued as artwork. Its crystal prisms sparkle and it envelopes a room in light,” Ms. Laureano wrote last week in an email. “My husband’s mother passed away from breast cancer many years ago. There are so many women that need support and giving a little helps so many.”

In one weekend, Dr. Schmitt built her bra, “Butterflies,” with her 13-year-old daughter, Erin, she said.

“We tried to make it have the appearance that she was surrounded by fluttering butterflies,” Dr. Schmitt said.

The butterflies are symbols of beauty and new life, she continued, and a hope that, someday, she will never again have to tell another woman she has breast cancer.

In support of the “LI2Day Walk for Breast Cancer,” the Heaven Can Wait team will host its Reconstructed Bra Fashion Show & Auction on Thursday, April 18, at 7 p.m. at the Southampton Social Club. Tickets are $45 in advance, or $55 at the door. Proceeds benefit local breast cancer awareness and support programs. Reservations are recommended. For more information, call 726-8715 or email sroden@southamptonhospital.org.