Viktoria & Woods founder Margie Woods was selected as this year’s designer for Witchery’s White Shirt Campaign, which raises funds for ovarian cancer research. In this Q&A with Witchery head of marketing Jennifer Petropoulos, Woods unpacks why she said yes.
Jennifer: It was probably a little less than a year ago when we picked up the phone and called you and asked you to collaborate with us on this White Shirt Campaign. Why did you say yes?
Margie: The call came as a surprise, and there was just so much happening last year for me with my family. My mother had ovarian cancer then, and still does. She’s not completely out of the woods yet. And my aunt also had a really aggressive cancer, and so did one of my best friends. So it just seemed like so much was happening. And then your call came, and I just felt like I had an opportunity to use a platform that I really love being part of, which is fashion, and do something really special with that.
Jennifer: It was serendipitous, wasn’t it? Because we had no idea that Mona [Margie’s mum] had been going through her treatment for ovarian cancer, and it definitely came as a huge shock to the Witchery team — having been part of this campaign over the years and knowing what an ovarian cancer diagnosis can mean for a woman. Are you able to share a little bit more about Mona’s journey?
Margie: So she was suffering sort of mild IBS symptoms for almost an entire year before she got diagnosed. She would be going to the doctors, and they’d be saying, "Let’s switch up your diet" or "Let’s switch up these things." And then it just progressively got to almost an intense pain.
She was going through something that a lot of women go through — these IBS symptoms — which is just a little bit of bloating maybe, but it became a lot worse. She became really lethargic. And then the doctor said to her, "Hey, let’s go to a dietitian now, let’s move in that direction." But she just said no, and literally drove herself to the hospital, got a biopsy, and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
At that point, she was at stage three cancer. And I’m going to say she was in a lot of pain and so easily could have been stage four. But they quickly got her into treatment and aggressively worked on her. She was 70 years old — luckily healthy enough to be able to work through that.
Right now she’s on inhibitors at the moment, and she seems to be doing okay. She has her off days and has to change things up here and there, but yeah — I’m really keen to reach that five-year mark. I think that’s the important mark — the five years of work. We’re a couple of years in now.
Jennifer: Meeting Mona [at a campaign shoot], you could just tell she has this strong determination in her character. She was in the white shirt, she went through the hair and makeup, and then when she sat on that soundstage next to you talking about her story, it was just so incredibly powerful. And we’re so grateful to hear that she’s feeling okay and heading in the right direction with her treatment. It was such a beautiful story that could be told. And it’s not easy telling your story.
By doing this campaign, what is your hope that we get out of this White Shirt campaign?
Margie: Well, honestly, I didn’t know much about ovarian cancer until my mum went through it. So I think more than anything, this is a campaign that just has to keep going. It’s that awareness that has to continue to be created. And it can’t be one-and-done — we really have to keep going, because every other day there’s another generation of women that we have to keep spreading this word to.
So I really hope that more than anything we create more noise and more awareness than ever before. And I really hope that one day we do find that cure — or at the very least get that early detection piece happening — so that more healthy women are out there. We need that.
Jennifer: Absolutely. Now, can we talk about this shirt? It’s 100% cotton, only $129 — what’s the inspiration behind this design?
Margie: Well, I wanted to make sure that we weaved in some signature Viktoria & Woods elements into her. So that’s why you’ve got this detachable belt (I actually saw somebody wearing it as a tie, which looked amazing) or you can leave it off.
I just wanted to build in this versatility to it. And it actually kind of mimics one of our best-selling blazers that we’ve got in the business. So we thought, Oh, why don’t we just weave that back into this White Shirt story?
Everyone’s wearing it differently today — it looks great.
Jennifer: I love how there are so many white shirts in this room, and we’ve literally all worn it in our own unique way. How incredible.
Again, a huge thank you Margie and Viktoria & Woods for this partnership. This year, we commenced the White Shirt Campaign as of today [April 8], and we run until the 8th of May. We hope to sell out all of the shirts and raise another $800,000 for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.
This Q&A was edited for brevity.