262 Miles For Bust

The Playtex MoonWalk — a 26.2-mile race in which participants sport imaginatively decorated bras to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer research — is truly a testament to the collective power of bosom buddies.

In 1996, stylist Nina Barough rallied a group of friends to stroll the New York marathon in wildly embellished bras to raise money for breast cancer. Two years later, when Barough herself was diagnosed with the disease, a group of her
friends decided to walk the London Marathon similarly (un)clad in her honor.

Now Walk the Walk (walkthewalk.org), Barough’s 11-year-old charity, sponsors similar events four times a year in cities throughout Great Britain and has raised nearly $80 million for breast cancer research and treatment centers, as well as for the landmark Generations study, which will track 100,000 women over a 40-year period with the aim of identifying risk factors for the disease. A New York Citybased MoonWalk is also in the works.

“I think we’ve been so successful because we’ve been able to inject a great deal of fun into something that is fundamentally so serious,” says Barough.