It’s 2020 and when we say that it is for everyone, we mean EVERYONE. India is increasingly becoming home to brands that are especially curating clothes for differently-abled people with different needs. Internationally, designers like Stephanie Thomas are the face behind clothing that is stylish, accessible, easy to wear, and that guarantees dignity to the wearer, thus putting the ‘able’ in ‘fashionable’. Tommy Hilfiger has an adaptive line running as well.
The Government of India recognises 21 disabilities including intellectual disability, locomotor disability, blindness, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’ disease amongst others. While efforts are constantly being made to accommodate challenges thrown by physical mobility, accessibility, and employability, if you ask a person with disability (PwD), they might be able to tell you often doing regular things that a more-able-bodied person would take for granted can be difficult. For instance, a person with arthritic fingers might find it difficult to pull a zip. Buttoning up a shirt might scare the daylights out of a person with an intellectual disability. A regular set of pockets on a regular pair of jeans might never be used by a wheel-chair bound person. The issue is also about one’s dignity. Somehow, persons with disabilities are perceived as child-like, ‘ill’ and particularly asexual, while it’s also interesting to think that very often, partial or complete dependence results in other people having access to their bodies in some of their most private moments as wearing clothes. There’s also the issue of non-adaptive clothing riding up or sliding down and the wearer not being able to adjust them or having to adjust them at all times, worried about the unsolicited gaze at their bodies. ALL of this calls for a change. The second decade of the 21st century is upon us and it is high time to make our fashion adapt to us rather than us adapting to the fashion of a privileged few.
Adaptive fashion can consist of anything from magnets to velcro to special hook-based zippers, elastic panels, to tactile clothing, and basically anything that might enable one to wear their clothes independently. Designers like Stephanie Thomas focus on the importance of three things when it comes to adaptive clothing: Accessibility, Smartness, and Fashion. Everyone likes to look good and feel good about themselves, and these clothes are adaptable in how they come up with their own little secrets while giving the look of the wearer just wearing ‘regular’ clothes.
While such clothes are not yet available in mass markets in India, these homegrown brands are making sure that no one is left behind.
Suvastra by Shalini Visakan
Suvastra Designs is India’s first inclusive fashion store catering to both persons with and without disabilities. It was founded in 2016 by Shalini Visakan, a designer from NIFT Chennai. Shalini’s husband inspired her to come up with this idea. She used to notice that her husband, who is wheelchair-bound, faced a lot of difficulties while getting dressed. In a bid to design clothes that were comfortable and convenient for him, she designed shirts with magnetic buttons and pants with Velcro for him. She also designed a one-piece saree for her aunt who is also wheelchair-bound. When she decided to present the collection at the Trios Fashion Show 2017 by Courtesy Foundation, Shalini contacted an organisation called Vidya Sagar that runs a school for children with disabilities. Before designing the clothes, Shalini talked to people from this organisation to understand their difficulties and tried to incorporate features to ease particular problems. For instance, she designs specially long crotches to accommodate adult diapers and attaches bigger loops to zippers for ease with fingers. More information about Suvastra can be found here.
Move Ability by Joe Ikareth
Move Ability Clothing or MAC provides clothing and accessories for persons with disabilities in order to enable ease of dressing and undressing. They aim at designing clothes that improve the wearer’s sense of self, their self-esteem and their confidence. They also want to change the way people look at PwDs. The designer, Joe Ikareth was inspired by his daughter. Instead of buttons and zips, they use magnets, velcro, and asymmetric cuts which shift the focus away from evident body disproportions in a differently-abled person, while enabling them to perform their daily tasks of dressing and undressing. The Kottayam based designer “looks at disability as ability.” A NIFT Delhi graduate, Ikareth has worked with the Kerala fabric, giving it a contemporary spin and has worked with dancers, devoting a line to them inspired by movement. They individualise the designs quite often for people and also help them bring out their individuality with colours that suit them. Find more about them here.
“Adaptive clothing is not available in India in shops or off the racks in big retail. It’s time that we start designing clothes for people with disability,” says Anita Narayan Iyer, founder and trustee of Ekansh Trust. The Trust is trying to promote adaptive clothing in India in the mainstream clothing line for senior citizens, PwDs and people who face difficulties with their clothes post-surgery. While there are others like Chennai-based bilateral amputee Malvika Iyer, a NIFT graduate who is trying to make adapting clothing by replacing buttons and lace with Velcro and adding lycra sleeves to the clothes, more Indian fashion brands need to take it up as a fully-formed fashion line.
If you liked this article, we suggest you also read :