Mad Activism
built into everything.
Our for purpose social enterprise is built to support and resource the Mad Pride movement by actively representing Mad activism and providing a strong support network for a community often marginalised and discriminated against. Our brand provides our movement with a sense of identity and community.
We believe in celebrating human diversity, resisting psychiatry’s harms and violence, through dignity, human rights, empowerment, inclusivity, and disability justice values.
We understand the power of storytelling and encourage individuals to share their truth and voice because real change and connection come from genuine expression.
Our commitment is to amplify Mad voices, break down stigma and discrimination, and build a community where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued as Mad people and allies.
What do we mean by “Mad”?
The term Mad is reclaimed by people with lived experience of madness, psychiatric diagnoses, psychosocial disability, or other non-normative ways of thinking and being.
Instead of seeing “madness” as an insult or pathology, the Mad community reclaims it as a positive, powerful identity — one that holds creativity, knowledge, and resistance.
Mad Pride
Mad Pride is a social movement that celebrates Mad identity, challenges stigma, and insists that Mad people have the right to self-definition and to be visible.
Like Pride movements in other communities, it transforms an experience often marginalised into a source of solidarity, strength, and joy.
An International Movement
The international Mad movement brings together psychiatric survivors, trauma survivors, ex-patients, refusers, and people identifying with psychosocial disability (c/s/x/m/p) across the globe.
A major drawcard of the movement is its engagement at the international human rights level, particularly through advocacy aligned with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This involvement underscores the movement’s legitimacy and strengthens its challenge to medicalised and colonial approaches to mental health.
Through the active participation of Mad Collective, this global work connects grassroots lived-experience leadership with international policy and advocacy spaces. This also provides a natural bridge to the movement’s relationship with the TACFLE network and the work of Matthew, further reinforcing the Mad movement’s role in advancing human rights, solidarity across Global North and South contexts, and systemic change.
The movement is diverse, culturally specific, and continues to grow as a global force for justice, dignity, and collective liberation.
Why a Fashion Brand?
Mad Collective was created to give the Mad movement a visible, everyday platform. Fashion is both identity and politics — what we wear sends a message.
By creating clothing and merchandise with Mad-affirming designs, we resource our community financially, amplify our visibility, and provide ways for people to proudly identify with the Mad movement.
Instead of being hidden or stigmatised, “Mad” becomes a word we wear openly, collectively, and defiantly.
ABOUT
MATTHEW
Meet Matthew – a proudly Mad, Neurodiverse, and Queer changemaker shaking up the global mental health scene with style and fire! An award-winning activist (yep, National Mental Health Advocate of the Year kind of award-winning), they flip the script on psychiatry by celebrating “illness” as a cultural and spiritual gift.
From from grassroots peer support to consulting with the the United Nations, World Health Organisation and World Economic Forum, Matthew has turned their lived experience of bipolar, CPTSD, grief, and resilience into fuel for radical social justice. They’re all about Mad pride, human rights, and transforming oppressive systems while uplifting marginalised voices. With a vision that transforms vulnerability into power,
Matthew is living proof that madness isn’t a weakness – it’s a movement for change.
Join them, get loud, and wear Mad pride on your sleeve!
