Support bras: Celebrities design lingerie for breast cancer charity's auction

Joanna Lumley, Helen Lederer and Claudia Winkleman are among more than 40 celebrities and designers who have customised bras in aid of a breast cancer charity.

Women are being invited to bid for the unique lingerie items at an auction next week. One of those donated, by milliner Nerida Fraiman, is estimated to be worth more than £1,000: it is hand-stitched with individual peacock feathers and has a diamanté jewel globe in the centre.

Another, designed by award-winning novelist Naomi Alderman, has written into it a short story by the author about a woman's relationship with her breasts. Esther Rantzen, Maureen Lipman, Isla Fisher and Kelly Brook have also designed bras for the breast cancer charity Cancerkin and the Jewish Community Centre for London.

The lingerie collection will go on show at a charity event at The Comedy Store in London on Monday 21 February.

The high-profile fundraiser for breast cancer comes as it emerged that a British woman's risk of developing the disease has risen to one in eight from one in nine, according to Cancer Research UK.

The auction runs from 13 to 27 February at jccbigbraauction.org.uk