'I Can't Walk but I Can Still Shop'
Empowrd • October 24, 2019
If you were listening to TRIPLE J HACK on Wednesday Night you would have heard the story of Charlotte Cory’s sister, who lived with terminal stomach cancer for almost 20 years.
"In her final year or so she was trying to find some clothes that she could wear with her various medical devices and stomach tubes that she had," Charlotte said. "We found it very difficult to find clothes that allowed her to dress independently but also that she liked and fitted her sense of style.
"It wasn't necessarily surprising that she found it difficult to find clothes, but there are much larger groups of people living with, in an ongoing way, various disabilities.”
Disability Advocate and Model Amanda Dixon
Charlotte has since created ‘Hello Yello’ an Australian Inclusive Fashion Online Store, which imports items from abroad.
What is Inclusive Fashion?
It is garments designed for consumers with disabilities who find it difficult to dress independently, as well as for the elderly, infants with medical devices or for people sensitive to certain textiles and materials.
Writer and disability advocate Lisa Cox uses a wheelchair and said inclusive fashion doesn't have to be anything special. "Inclusive fashion and universal design, it's not about having a special disabled clothing for disabled people," Lisa said. “It's just about accessible clothing that can be worn by myself or by you and with some really, really simple tweaks.”
“People who use a wheelchair ... designing without any pressure points on where you sit, having higher waistlines," she said.
And for people with sensory processing disorders, "You can move from having a cloth label to having a heat press label and also from seams that stick out, making sure that those are sewn down."
Lisa believes it’s up to designers to start designing for a broader range of body types and therefore a larger customer base. More than 4 million Australians are estimated to have a disability, yet there are only a handful of boutique manufacturers across the country making inclusive and adaptive clothing for them.
To visit Hello Yello Click Here
To listen to the Hack episode Click Here
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