Essity, global hygiene and health company and owner of Bodyform, Libresse, Nana, Nuvenia, Saba and Nosotras, is committed to breaking the taboos that hold women back. With the award-winning #BloodNormal campaign in 2017, Bodyform and Libresse tackled the stigma around periods, turning blue liquid red and showing period blood as it really is. With “Viva La Vulva” in 2018, singing vulvas called out the toxic myth of the perfect vulva.

In 2020, Bodyform and Libresse have now created their boldest campaign to date, confronting a damaging etiquette that women live with every day, one which dictates what they should – and shouldn’t – feel about their bodies.

With #wombstories, Bodyform and Libresse push back against the single, simplistic narrative girls are taught from a young age: start your period in adolescence, repeat with “a bit” of pain, want a baby, get pregnant, have more periods, stop periods, fade into the menopausal background.

The reality is, of course, much messier, but society doesn’t encourage women to talk openly about the highs and lows of their intimate health, especially in times of global uncertainty. A new research study of women and men by Bodyform and Libresse found that two-thirds of women who experienced miscarriage, endometriosis, fertility issues and menopause said that being open with family and friends helped them cope.

With #wombstories from agency AMV BBDO in London, Bodyform and Libresse want to encourage an open culture where everyone can express what they go through without fearing they won’t be properly heard or believed and without feeling shame that they are somehow less than what they were taught to be. The pleasure, the pain, the love, the hate. It’s never simple but it all needs to be heard. Because keeping it in or leaving it unheard comes at an emotional and physical cost both at an individual and collective level.

For #wombstories, Bodyform and Libresse worked with Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated director, writer and producer Nisha Ganatra, a predominantly female crew and an all-women team of animators and illustrators who have imagined the life of wombs. Ganatra directed via Chelsea Pictures. Framestore provided animation and live-action visual effects.

From the burning down apartment of a peri-menopausal woman, a monster ripping at an endometriosis sufferer’s uterus, a woman’s “flood gate” moment during her period and an unexpected sneeze, to the woman who has chosen not to have children and the often-turbulent journey of trying to conceive. These few womb stories chronicle the sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal human side of the biology and physiology they experienced every day. And while only a handful of experiences are shown, they represent the billions of complex experiences--from hysterectomies, postpartum trauma, artificial menopause, being a trans-man, the list is long.

Six sequences

Framestore brought to life six animated sequences, each featuring a different style of animation to show the inner-worlds that act as reflections to the realities of the uterus. Framestore creative director Sharon Lock worked with AMV BBDO executive creative directors Nadja Lossgott and Nicholas Hulley (aka Nick & Nadja) to carefully select the styles of animations that would bring to life the emotions and unique perspectives of each story. Styles included 2D cel techniques and stop frame animation, as well as hand-painted images created with oil paint on glass.


Ganatra said, “When they’re at their best, our bodies are incredible machines that give us pleasure, and, if we want them to, help us propagate the human race. But they don’t always work. Hell, they don’t often work. Irregular periods. Endometriosis. Miscarriages and infertility. Our bodies can bring joy but also pain and devastation. It’s an emotional roller coaster that lasts a lifetime. I feel particularly drawn to this project. The work I feel most passionate about is the work that meaningfully resists outmoded social norms that no longer fit the cultural moment but persist, nonetheless. When my daughter is an adult, it shouldn’t just be acceptable for a woman to have ownership over her body and over her narrative. It shouldn’t just be acceptable for people to be who they want and to love who they want and to choose not to have children if they want. This should be the norm.”


Read the full article and view the Top Ten VFX and Animation Chart here.