Kenneth Cole on Launching The Mental Health Coalition to Provide Support During the Coronavirus Pandemic

“How are you?” It’s one of the most commonly asked question in the world, and yet it’s so rarely answered candidly. Working to change this is fashion designer and social activist Kenneth Cole, who recently announced the launch of The Mental Health Coalition, a new initiative bringing together leading U.S. mental health organizations, platforms, and advocates to work more collectively and collaboratively to shatter stigmas around mental health. “It’s a public health crisis,” emphasizes Cole, citing the fact that 1 in 4 people globally will be affected by a mental health condition, according to the World Health Organization, and that now, amid a global pandemic with many experiencing grief, anxiety, and depression, the magnitude could become that much more substantial. “The impact the physical virus is going to have on our communities is devastating in and of itself, but I think the emotional implications are going to be even more severe and long-lasting.”

The crux of The Mental Health Coalition is connection and understanding through storytelling. As a digital platform, it’s designed to be a place where individuals can share their personal experiences and coping strategies for mental health in a safe and interactive way. In tandem with its launch, The Mental Health Coalition has created a social media challenge, which asks participants to post a video answering the question, “How are you, really?”—and then invite others to answer the same question. The challenge has already prompted participation from Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, Whoopi Goldberg, Deepak Chopra, Kesha, Kendall Jenner, Justin and Hailey Bieber, and more. Here, Cole expands on how The Mental Health Coalition came to be, and how he hopes the organization can help to rebrand and destigmatize mental health at this critical time.

To start, what have you been reflecting on in quarantine? How is this time shifting your values and ideals?
In quarantine, I’ve been reflecting and contextualizing everything. I’ve been spending a lot of time contemplating the post-coronavirus world. How’s it going to work? How are people going to consume? How will people transact? What role will we be able to play? How do we make a meaningful impact in people’s wardrobes, as well as in their communities? You know, fashion is very adept. As an industry we’re very good at reacting to change because that, in effect, is what we do. Fashion is built on a pedestal of change and while you need to have structure, at the same time you need to be able to respond quickly to the prevailing winds as they shift. Now, they’re shifting harder then we’ve never seen before. So we’re trying to make sense of it all. This is today’s new normal, but what’s more relevant is the next normal. Will we be ready for it?

What initially inspired you to launch The Mental Health Coalition? Why is working to destigmatize mental health so important to you personally?
In the fashion business, I’ve always been focused on not just on what people are wearing, but what’s on their minds, and not just for what we stand in, but what we stand for. So it’s always been important for me, and also the brand. I spent the last 30 years working on awareness of HIV, running amfAR for 14 years. I realized the impact we were able to make in so many people’s lives. So when about a year and a half ago, I was asked if I would be willing to work on an initiative to destigmatize mental health, under the notion that it’s as bad today as HIV was 20 years ago, I said yes. 1 in 200 live with HIV, 1 in 4 live with a mental health condition—although I believe it’s really 4 out 4 because if it’s not you, you’re impacted by somebody you love in your family or community who is. It was in the works before the pandemic and we weren’t expecting to launch this until November. We accelerated everything quickly when we realized how relevant it, in fact, became. As bad as mental health issues are in and of themselves, the stigma is also debilitating.