Supermodel advocate joins forces with fashion brand for ovarian cancer campaign
On the brink of an early detection breakthrough, cancer survivor Bianca Balti teams up with Camilla and Marc to implore the government to do more in the fight against the ‘silent killer’.
The phrase “silent killer” gets bandied about a lot when it comes to health. And with an illness such as ovarian cancer, it’s more terrifying than anything Jason Voorhees, the hockey-masked villain from the Friday the 13th franchise, could throw at you.
What is equally inspiring and alarming is that Australian fashion house Camilla and Marc is doing more for research and awareness than our official policymakers.
Bianca Balti, the face famous from Dolce & Gabbana runways and fragrance campaigns for more than a decade and a mother of two daughters, was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer at 40.
She was vigilant in attending regular check-ups with her doctor after she became aware she was carrying the BRCA1 gene mutation, discovered when her aunt died from an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Balti chose to undergo a preventative double mastectomy in 2022. A huge decision for someone who makes a living off their physical attributes.
Then in September 2024, just shy of two years since her surgery and with plans afoot to schedule a preventative oophorectomy – a procedure to remove one or both ovaries – she was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer.
“I did a check-up two and a half months before I was diagnosed and it was clear. It was then I got the ‘silent killer’ thing,” Balti tells WISH. “It’s crazy that about 10 weeks later I had stage 3 cancer. It had, in that short time, spread from my bladder and the colon all the way to my diaphragm. If it got to my lungs, I would have been diagnosed with stage 4.”
The only hint Balti was seriously unwell was a bloated stomach. Something many of us mere mortals would experience daily.
There’s the heartbreaking rub.
The symptoms of this killer are all part and parcel of the female experience riding the hormonal wave of life. Her friends rolled their eyes at this statuesque, slender and fit beauty “complaining” about her pants feeling a little snug.
Then came the pain.
“I was heading off for a trip away with my daughters, so I didn’t want to ruin the weekend when I started to feel this tummy ache. I decided I’ll just go to the doctor on Monday. Then on Saturday it was a bit worse, then by Sunday … the pain, my god, we got home and I ordered the family a pizza but I had to go to the ER by that point. I couldn’t move. It was excruciating and kept increasing in just two days.”
You would think after receiving this shocking, life-altering news, then undergoing massive surgery and gruelling treatments, one would be a little jaded with life.
Not Balti.
Despite losing all her hair due to treatment while worrying about her future career prospects, she now wears her scar proudly. It’s still a visible wound that runs from under her lungs “all the way to my pubes!” she laughs.
Balti is now turning her attention to raising awareness, not about the disease but for the necessity of continual funding for women’s health.
“Science and research [make] the biggest difference. We must take care of ourselves as much as possible – like, I did all the things you should do to avoid getting sick – but early detection is key. Unfortunately, what I learned is that the ovaries are in a place where there are so many organs around them … So even when they performed my surgery, the doctors had to open my entire abdomen up to see because there is so much ‘stuff’. They have to move organs like Tetris to investigate and try to save us. Even with all the check-ups we might not see the signs until it’s too late. We need, and we should all be demanding, more scientific research into something that really only concerns women,” Balti says.
Modelling, Balti says, “just happened to me”. Quite the understatement for this Italian-born, LA-based woman who really should call the Uffizi Galleries home.
Many brands that worked with her during her two-decade career, however, preferred to send cards rather than contracts following her diagnosis. Some stopped considering her for work, mistakenly, thinking that a then bald Balti could not represent them.
Vogue Adria called her the “face of strength”. She has since graced the cover of the Italian edition of Vanity Fair. Her optimism – even down the phone – is infectious. She is also the voice of compassion. Her DMs are flooded with stories of survival and heartache, and she loves engaging with fans, followers and those who have followed in her footsteps into chemotherapy treatment rooms.
Balti’s focus on “staying positive” despite raging about ovarian cancer’s dire statistics is what makes her truly beautiful. It’s also why she’s teamed up with Australian fashion brand Camilla and Marc as an advocate for its annual ovarian cancer campaign.
“I came across the campaign before I got sick. I reposted a film on Instagram, which featured a woman who died. It totally shocked me as I was expecting a happy ending. I think it actually saved me as after that I had so many people with first-hand experience reaching out to me with information when I didn’t know I’d need it.”
She calls founders Camilla Freeman-Topper and Marc Freeman “inspirations”, as are those dealing with – and discussing – breast and ovarian cancer.
“They all made me realise how important it is for me to talk about it. There is always someone who needs to hear this information,” Balti says.
Unfortunately, she’s right.
The World Ovarian Cancer Coalition projects that by 2050 the number of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer will increase by more than 55 per cent and the death rate by 70 per cent. This means potentially losing about 350,000 mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts and grandmothers per year to a disease which still does not have an early detection test.
Freeman-Topper, usually more composed than her trademark tailoring about this fact and the lukewarm interest from politicians, is furious.
“It’s quite frankly diabolical how deeply political women’s health, medical research and even charity fundraising can be. I used to think if something was important enough, like saving lives or an organ that is literally the reason we are all alive, it would naturally get support. But the reality is, getting attention and funding for women’s health has been, and still is, an uphill battle,” Freeman-Topper tells WISH.
“It is so critical to bring communities together to advocate and push for change, because if we left it to policymakers alone, ovarian cancer, for example, would just continue to go underfunded and under the radar.
“By 2050, about 500,000 women around the world will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. If that isn’t reason enough for governments to act, what will be?” Freeman-Topper asks.
The designer and her brother Marc – who were 11 and 13 respectively when they lost their mother Pam, 42, to ovarian cancer – have channelled that anger into a campaign that is less talk and more action.
Sure, their clothes, and especially their “Ovaries. Talk About Them.” T-shirts are covetable, but it’s the call to action of this collection that makes the work so powerful.
After working for years alongside Professor Caroline Ford and her team at the University of New South Wales Gynaecological Cancer Research Group, the Ovaries. Talk About Them, campaign has raised more than $2.5 million in direct research funding. They’re now on the verge of a world-first scientific breakthrough.
“This year marks the final year of our five-year goal, to get the world’s first DNA-based early detection test to clinical trials. We’re feeling really confident about how far the research has come. The team at UNSW, all female too, have done an incredible job in increasing the specificity and sensitivity of this test. We truly believe it will be trial-ready soon,” Freeman-Topper adds.
“We’ll keep advocating for ovarian cancer awareness and research for as long as it takes to shift the narrative and make true change when it comes to this disease.”
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler told WISH the initiative by Camilla and Marc is “an important reminder about how many women this cancer touches … The Albanese Labor Government is doing all we can to support patients, families, loved ones and carers on their ovarian cancer journey”. Since 2017 successive governments have committed more than $12 million for screening projects and support programs for those diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and, as recently as 2024, subsidised more treatments via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
“Our mother died over 30 years ago from ovarian cancer. Today the statistics haven’t changed significantly enough and there is still no test. It’s simply not good enough,” Freeman-Topper says.
Fashion trends come and go, yet the stagnation of ovarian cancer statistics and lack of an early detection test are a stubborn stain on our nation’s medical scrubs.
This story is from the September issue of WISH.
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