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Background: Breast support garments available to people affected by breast cancer are based on generalised, conventional bra construction principles that do not accommodate diverse breast support needs, including those of people living without reconstruction, with differently sized breasts, one breast, or a flat chest after mastectomy. These lived realities highlight supply gaps that affect everyday quality of life. My practice-based PhD (https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/6567/) developed the Participatory Clothing Design Sessions (PCDS), an original method centring experiential expertise through tactile processes and integrating embodied knowledge into wearer-led clothing design.

Objectives: The workshop presents the PCDS as a practice-led method that positions clothing design as embodied inquiry and demonstrates how participants express unmet breast support needs, with designers as allies.

Methods: The PCDS evolved internationally with people affected by breast cancer through iterative test sessions. Participants wear a vest-shaped Paper Proto (PP) made from soft Japanese washi, on which they draw, cut, mark, and annotate their breast support needs where they occur on the body. Working individually or in pairs, participants express functional and emotional needs through creative engagement. The workshop replicates this process in a facilitated session.

Results: Across sessions, participants communicated needs through spoken, drawn, written, and nonverbal expressions. The PPs captured needs in a comparable, tangible form, generating insights transferable into clothing design practice.

Conclusion: The PCDS offers an embodied, arts-based method that values wearer expertise, extends understandings of post-mastectomy bodily experience, and supports alliances between designers and those affected. The workshop invites participants to experience and reflect on this method.