The first time, Marie-Eve Richard was 24 years old. It was crazy, it seemed unreal, but she had melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer. There was an operation, then a remission and she was able to resume her life.
Until he was 39.
“There, I had a mortgage, children, a career, responsibilities. We do not put money aside thinking that we will be sick, but everything is affected: the couple, the family, the finances, ”she says.
The diagnosis of cancer, taken 2, fell at the end of 2021, in the midst of a pandemic. January 2022, a major leg operation, and the following month, the once-photographer was offered a contract in Costa Rica, where she decided to go with her husband, regardless.
“I had to protect myself from the sun, I didn’t want a third cancer! I looked for jerseys with protection and I didn’t find anything nice, just long sleeves, black. I left with ill-fitting clothes, in which I did not feel feminine,” she recalls.
A pink crab inspires her
At the beach, she saw, in the middle of a group of crabs, a very pink specimen. It had lost its shell and burned in the sun. Marie-Eve was moved and took him with her. Like her, he would have needed a shell to protect himself from the sun. This is where the idea of launching her swimwear line was born.
“I knew that I was no longer going to be able, physically, to be a photographer,” said the one who was to undergo, on her return from Costa Rica, a year of chemotherapy treatments.
“I wanted us to think of something beautiful while protecting ourselves from the sun. So it was for me first, but also for children, babies and then I was told, why not men too! Everything went at lightning speed from there,” says Marie-Eve, mother of two children aged 7 and 13.
Transcend the ordeal
It seems crazy to her today to have started a business at the same time as she was undergoing chemo treatments that left her in long and intense tremors when she gave too much energy to a task as simple as vacuuming.
“It is as if I had been in the body of an elderly person. I had to learn to manage my energy,” she says.
Marie-Eve’s research to find the right fabric for her swimsuits, the one that really protects by blocking 98% of UV rays, was long. She has seen a lot of rhetoric and false protections in this area. She also wanted an eco-responsible fabric and her choice fell on a product made with recycled fishing nets.
“It was very hard to find. I was told to drop one of my two demands, but I didn’t want to compromise!”
Afterwards, there was to tackle the design, the website, the marketing, the financing and the manufacturing; a thousand things to do to bring Krabeo to life. And through all this, Marie-Eve was shooting a documentary, which she hopes will be widely distributed soon, in order to prevent highly preventable cancers.
Krabeo swimsuits are made in Quebec and block 98% of UVA and UVB rays; the highest level of protection available.
Photo QMI Agency, Joël Lemay
Create Krabeo and Doc.UV, it was transforming his ordeal into positive energy; it was thumbing its nose at the disease.
Today, Marie-Eve’s health is fine. His swimsuits are available online and recently at the Les Vagues store in Havre-Saint-Pierre, and soon at Canicule in Magog and Boucherville.
“There, I am ready to develop, develop, develop!” she says with a broad smile. He’s already being asked for protective clothing for other outdoor activities, so Krabeo might just be getting out of the water…
Profile of Marie-Eve Richard
- Founder of Krabeo
- Age: 41 years old
2023-07-24 04:25:06
#skin #cancers #mother #launches #swimwear #business #sun #protection
