A UNIQUE new clothing brand inspired by a young York woman’s brave battle against a brain tumour will take its fashions on to the catwalk at a York hotel on Sunday as part of York Fashion Week.

Warpaint: Fashion for the Fight is then set for national exposure when it is featured this autumn on BBC TV's The One Show.

Joanne Nicholson, mother of Emily Rhodes, who died in April 2019, has told previously how she was inspired to come up with the idea for the clothing range when she witnessed how difficult it was for Emily to receive treatments while wearing normal everyday clothing.

“She would go for a treatment and would immediately be told to remove her top,” she said. “This would immediately make her feel all control was being taken away.”

She said that she and her business partner Claire Myles Wharton, spent two years designing and developing ‘Warpaint’, the name chosen because Emily used to say she was ‘putting her warpaint on’ to go for treatment.

The business's clothing is aimed at people undergoing medical treatments, with zips and ports built in that could be opened to allow procedures to take place and a pouch at the front opening to give access to stoma bags, peg feeds and drains.

The clothes, which also feature zips on the neck for central lines, pacemaker checks, ECGs and breast checks, and an internal tourniquet in the arms, are already being worn by patients at York Hospital.

Joanne said yesterday: "We are on the runway at the Malmaison at 3.30- 5pm on Sunday, with our amazing models and even more amazing designs. 

"The tickets are selling fast, so hopefully it will be an amazing experience once again. 

"We are so excited for the future and what we can do to make people's journeys better while having treatments. 

"It makes it all worthwhile when we get people messaging us thanking us for listening to them. We know our designs are making a difference and that means everything."

She said she and Claire had been really busy, having done four lots of filming with the One Show.

"We’ve just finished filming and are just waiting to find out when it’s being aired," she said.

"We did an amazing photo shoot with our models last week at The Elmbank Hotel. What an amazing, beautiful hotel it is. 

"We are also in The Fabrication store on Coney Street - we are renting a space upstairs to open a design studio, where anyone can come and speak to us about any issues they have with clothing and see if we can help. 

"We also have a small rail in which we sell from and are doing amazingly."