Top animation talent brought together for Bodyform’s #WombStories
An all-women team of top animation and illustration talent have joined forces in the creation of Womb Stories, a new Bodyform ad campaign that follows on from the company’s similarly impressive Viva la Vulva in 2019 and Blood Normal in 2017.
Combining live action with animated segments in a variety of styles of animation, the spot explores various inconvenient, hard and hidden truths of “living with wombs, vulvas and periods”. Among the themes of each segment are struggles with menopause, endometriosis, conception, fertility treatment and miscarriage. The campaign intends to subvert the taboos and associated issues of shame and misinformation regarding women’s health through visuals that are simultaneously engaging, appealing and uncompromising.
We tell girls a simple story: Get your period around twelve. Deal with some pain. Have some babies. Then more periods. And then around fifty your body is meant to politely retire.
But it’s never that simple. The unseen, unspoken, unknown stories of our periods, vulvas and wombs – our wombstories – are so much more complex and profound.
They are real stories of love and hate, of pleasure and pain and pain so severe it’s a disease with a name, endometriosis, it’s stories of longing and trying for babies. And of never wanting children. Ever. The joy of birth. The pain of birth. And the silent devastation of miscarriage. Stories of clockwork periods. And haywire ones. Of awkward beginnings and roller-coaster peri-menopausal endings. Good stories. Bad stories. Mundane ones. Profound ones. The bitter. And the sweet.
And all of them, all our wombstories are as valid, as normal, as real as any others. And none of us should be made to hide what we feel inside.
-Bodyform
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- Salla Lehmus
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- Roos Mattaar
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- Laura Jayne Hodkin
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- Kate Isobel Scott
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- Haein Kim
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- Carine Khalife
The ad was directed by Nisha Ganatra (Chelsea Pictures) and created by Nicholas Hulley and Nadja Lossgott (Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO), with the animation side of things helmed by Framestore, whose Creative Director Sharon Lock brought together animators Laura Jayne Hodkin, Carine Khalife, Haein Kim, Salla Lehmus, Roos Mattaar and Kate Isobel Scott to bring each unique womb universe to life through a variety of styles spanning 2D, stop-motion and paint-on-glass.
It was important that everyone worked really closely together to make sure every frame did its part in telling the stories and I think the final piece speaks for itself. It was amazing to be part of such an inspiring and creative campaign.
-Sharon Lock, Framestore Creative Director