With the news that people in the United States have been stripped of their abortion rights, one store here in Toronto is speaking out using what they have: their window display.

Bone & Busk by Katharina Mior, a couture shop and expert corsetiere, filled their shop's display window with coat hangers recently, writing "reproductive rights are human rights" on the glass.

"We stand with our friends in the USA who are being stripped of their right to bodily autonomy," the store wrote in the caption to a photo of the display posted to the business's Instagram on June 24.

Bone & Busk proprietor Katharina Mior put the display up immediately upon reading that Roe v. Wade had been repealed.

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A post shared by Bone & Busk by Katharina Mior (@boneandbuskcouture)

"I have seen this display tagged in quite a few Instagram stories and posts and have been personally thanked by shoppers stopping in," Mior tells blogTO.

This isn't the first time she's used the shop's window to address important topics, and the response she's gotten to this one has actually been less inflammatory than some others that were based on more locally focused issues.

"The overall response has not been as fervent or vocal as our displays of Indigenous solidarity or antifascism. Local issues that affect the people living here will always have a more impacting response," says Mior. 

"When we mounted a display condemning war and fascism in November 2019, we had quite a lot of people who wouldn't typically shop in our store stop in just to thank us."

In her personal life, Mior contributes to the causes she's passionate about by fundraising as a DJ on Twitch for organizations like the Minnesota Freedom Fund, the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, The Sophie Lancaster Foundation and the ACLU.

"I have also actively contributed to Planned Parenthood in the wake of this draconian assault on bodily autonomy rights in the USA," says Mior. "I also actively hit the pavement at protests and am involved in various community organizations, including working as a vaccination ambassador and clinic defense."

However, she just wants to use the window as a form of expression, not as a way to raise funds.

"I abhor using capitalism to promote a moral position. We do not sell products to raise money, I raise money through my extra curricular activities," says Mior.

"I use my window as a billboard for promoting important ideas but I will not use those important ideas to push product. For example, several people came in asking if we carried merchandise promoting bodily autonomy and I responded that we don't do that here."

Inspired by the window displays of Linda Fargo and Salvador Dali, Mior always wants her windows to be an extension of her values and creativity.

"I make my displays based upon ideas I have and responses I have to what is happening in the world around me," says Mior.

"Sometimes they are escapist fantasy, sometimes they reflect the brutal reality of the dystopian nightmare we are currently living in. I suppose I will remove this display when the next terrible thing happens, or Hallowe'en. Whichever comes first."