Fashion without barriers

From big innovative projects to small and simple ideas. This program is all about making life a little bit better. So allow me to take you back to an episode we did about some of the ways that fashion can be adapted for people living with disabilities. People? Big big big sings. People fixing the world.

It's another great week here on People Fixing the World from the BBC World Service because we get to kick despair out of the room and talk about positive ideas that are making our world a better place. I'm Myra Anubi, and today we're finding out about projects that are rethinking fashion and making it more accessible for people everywhere. has evolved.

and wear or how we can style our hair. So I for example just simply get up, get dressed and get on with my day. Unfortunately not everyone gets the same options that I do with fashion.

For many people around the world, it's not always easy getting the clothes they need or doing everyday tasks like doing their own hair. Patients recovering from surgery, people with conditions like arthritis or dementia, children with special needs or disabled people. Now the World Health Organization says one in six of the world's population has some form of disability, and the possibility of becoming disabled is something we all face.

So these are need to make fashion more adaptive. And that's where today's solutions are making a difference. These are new ideas that are helping people have more control over their appearance. To understand more, I've got Emma Tracy here, the BVC presenter of our disability and mental health podcast, Access All. Emma, it's great to finally have you here. Oh thank you for having me, Myra. It's lovely to be here.

Now, Emma, we're looking at appearance, right, on this program. And to start off, let's talk about hair. Help me understand how is it for you when you have to make your own hair? So I'm blind. And and hair is very tactile, but the issue is I don't go around feeling other people's heads to know what their hair feels like. I mean I do the odd time, but not very often.

And I also can't see, you know, YouTube videos on how to style my hair. And I can't learn by sight so I have to be learn by being shown. My issues with doing my hair stem around frizzy bits and making sure they're tamed, but also making sure that my hair looks like other people's hair when it's styled,'cause it is important to me for my hair to look nice and to be tidy and and, you know. So I've been worried about this for a while. My

Podcasts have started being filmed for social videos. So I went along to a really cool workshop in East London for blind and visually impaired women, which teaches them how to style their hair and how to feel more confident about their hair when they're out and about. We have the BBC Access All team. So we have wonderful Emma Tracy who's with us at the table with everyone. Hello. Anna Cafone is a hairstylist to the stars, Jualipa and Lana Del Rey to name just two.

She's used to performing under pressure, but I joined her at her Passion Project, a workshop for blind and visually impaired women to learn how to style hair. But the plan for this morning is that we're gonna be looking at how you can create smooth hair with volume. Using Velcro roller. Anna told me she began the workshop four years ago as she wanted to give something back to a community that means a lot to her.

So my father was blind. He started losing his eyesight in his mid twenties, but he was always dressed in a in a suit, shirt and tie, always freshly shaven, would even cut his own hair. Amazingly. I was blind. Yeah, um he taught he taught himself how to do it. So he'd he'd he'd use clippers and an envelope to get the straight edges at the back and sides.

I'll admit, up to now I've been a little bit more concerned with my clothes and my makeup. But now that my podcast is being filmed, I'd like to have a little bit more control over my curls. Anna takes me to the workshop and shows me how. take your hand and I'm gonna get you to feel my hair. So I've got curly hair. Yeah. Equally fri like frizzy and fly away. Yeah and The thing is, curly hair is always gonna have a degree of frizz. Продолжение следует...

Anna teaches me how to put on product, how to section my hair and to twist it. And even how often to wash it. The workshop is noisy and fun and full of women using mannequin heads to try things out, often for the very first time.

I take two blind students aside, Taylor Notcut and Aqua Ifraim, to see what they make of it. Here's Taylor first. I feel like before this workshop I didn't think about having a relationship with my hair, if that makes sense. I thought like hair was a visual thing that I kind of had to battle with rather than work with.

like today I'd like learn as well like how much hair care is about touch and feeling connected to your hair. So like the angle also give each other advice on what's best to do as a vision impaired person because a sighted person give me directions but they don't understand my barriers to success. They might say scrunch your hair but you're like, I don't actually know what scrunch means. Yeah. You have to be more descriptive with uh VI vision paired people, because otherwise I don't understand

Well, I definitely learned a lot about how to get the best out of my curls, but just to make sure I was listening, Anna tested me at the end. Uh instead of water, I'm gonna use a leave-in conditioner to moisturize it and get it ready to go. Exactly. It's gonna really moisturize the hair and give it a bit more slip. And I scrunch it through and make sure it's in all the hair. Then I get the whole cream. Yes. I get the shaping cream.

Honestly, my love, once you get the hang of this, you can do that. I do my hair in five minutes. Okay, fine. Five minutes, second minutes. Thank you. It sounds like a lovely workshop, Emma, and I have to ask, since then, are you enjoying doing your hair? Yes, I am. I think it's really important for me to feel like

I look the same as or similar to other people in my situation. So like a presenter or a mum on the school run or whatever. And I've been able to play with it and and try out different styles and and see how I can make my hair match. my identity and the different parts of me, so it's it's been a bit of an exploration. Well your hair looks great today and I have to say no more slouching from now on. I will be expecting good hair days all the time. I have shot myself in the foot there, haven't I?

Yeah, yeah. While I'm here then, can I just tell you that for more stories like this, you can listen to the BBC's Disability and Mental Health podcast Access All wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch a video of Emma and how she got on at Hair and Care. Look out for it on all our BBC World Service social media sites, including Instagram and Facebook. And Emma, I will get out of your hair now. Thanks for what we've had today.

Thank you, Myra. I'm Myra Anubi and you're listening to People Fixing the World from the BBC World Service. So today we're talking about ways to make fashion actually work for people who have different needs. And we've just learned how one stylist in the UK is helping people who are visually impaired style their hair.

Now let's talk about wardrobes because for many people it can be very hard to find clothes that are both functional and fashionable. In Europe and the US, designers have been creating what's called adaptive clothing. So basically clothes that are easier to put on and take off for people with particular medical needs or those with reduced mobility or disable people. However, these clothes are often expensive and designed for specific climates.

But that's where our next solution seekers come in. I've been speaking to two women from two very different parts of the world to find out about their adaptive clothing ranges. Shamla Ramasami owns purple threads in Singapore, and Delma Shabalala runs Werapy, meaning what we wear is therapy. She's from South Africa and she was inspired because of her own experience.

When I started the brand it was because of my own problems. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I couldn't button myself, like my shirts because I've got limited mobility in my fingers. So it was because of that I still wanted to be dignified, I still wanted to be dressed pretty and my fashion sense did not die because of my condition. And I'm not defined by my condition.

Great. And speaking about some of uh the descriptions you've given us, you know, I'm looking at some of your designs right now. I'm looking at a lady in a wheelchair, very glamorous, in a lovely pink gown. It's got frills at the bottom. And there's also another gentleman in a dapper suit with a hidden zip on the side that you can see then that he has a prosthetic leg. Tell us about your designs. Okay. I'll start with the lady. She was going for a function.

And what most people don't realise or know is that the wheels in a wheelchair can grab onto clothing. So you want she wanted to look glamorous? But then a a very big puffy dress was not gonna work. But she wanted a bit of volume. I got some stretch material. To make that dress for her so that she could dress herself.'Cause I feel stretchy material is very forgiving.

And I place the zip by the side so that she can zip herself. Whereas the zip at the back, she won't be able to reach for it. Mm-hmm. And then the gentleman with um prosthetic well what people don't know is that with prosthetic legs they tend to move. So any given day he'd have to go to the bathroom to go and fix his leg. So I found if you put a zip like on the inner seam, he can just sit down and open his zip, fix his leg, close his zip and it actually doesn't look undignified.

He looks fine, it's not you know it's not it's not a big problem. We are also joined by Shamla in Singapore. Shamla, tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. Hi, I'm Shamla Ramasami. I run Purple Threads Adaptive, which is to provide inclusive clothing for people with disabilities as well as seniors here in Singapore and also Southeast Asia.

And what we do in terms of making clothing adaptive is to make things easier for people with what we call limited mobility. So for instance if someone an elderly person is suffering from arthritis. The clothing, you know, has got features such as either m mag magnetic strips or velcro strips, big buttons to make it easier for them to put the clothing on. Right. Um so what was the situation like in Singapore before you started your business?

So before I started Purple Threads in twenty ten, there was absolutely no one doing adaptive or inclusive clothing. There were essentially two places in the world, n really in the world where we could actually get it. That was from the US And the UK. Delma, what was the situation for you in South Africa before you started?

Well the situation was bad. It still is to a s large extent. And that there is nothing. Apart from me, there's really nothing. So nobody even knows that there's actually a problem. Because some of the people I've worked with, like uh had some models come over to, you know, put on the clothing so that we could have a photo shoot. A lot of them were like, you know, I actually didn't realise that I've been struggling with this. I just thought this is the way it is.

So this is the life I live. So you'll find most people will wear tracksuits to a wedding or, you know, uncomfortable clothing to a wedding or just plain ugly clothing.

I think what Delma said totally resonated with what was going on here. Because they don't know They just put up with the inconvenience. So so true. Just to share one more one experience where my client actually she bought an adaptive shirt and pants for her husband who had recently got into an accident. and after I'd sent the the the clothing over, the husband emailed me and basically he said that I had given him his sense of dignity back because

He felt very embarrassed being the breadwinner in the family. Suddenly now he was in a wheelchair and his wife had to dress him up. Th the thing is we have not done anything that's brand new or out of this world. Yes. It's just reimagining. In the future I want to see a lot of competition because Shamla and I, yes, we're there when we look, we want to make money and all of that stuff, but we can't do it all by ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so many people.

I wonder if there's a possible collaboration here, the way it's sounding. Yes. And Shamla, I am so getting in touch with you. Me too, Delma. Definitely. I think we can definitely work through. Amazing. A big thanks to Delma Shabalala and Shamla Ramasami for sharing their experiences with making adaptive clothing for people in South Africa and Singapore.

We've heard about some ideas that can make adaptive clothing both fashionable and functional, but another issue is just how they fit. It's something that even mainstream fashion struggles with. I mean, we all know that experience of wearing one size from one shop and how that could be completely different from buying the same size from another store. But that's where our next solution could help.

Our reporter Claire Bose has been visiting a clothing company for disabled people here in London, which is working on smart technology that could improve the way we measure and design clothes for everyone. I know it sounds crazy, but the idea of turning up and looking like a pirate was just too good to pass on.

This is AJ Clements. He's a businessman with an artistic flair. He's recently turned his eye to fashion, what he calls universal fashion, designs which anyone can wear regardless of size, gender or disability. Mae'n ymwneudol ac yn ymwneudol, ond yn ymwneudol. Mae'n ymwneudol yn ymwneudol, ond mae'n ymwneudol yn ymwneudol, ond mae'n ymwneudol yn ymwneudol, ond mae'n ymwneudol yn ymwneudol.

Mae'n ymwneud yn ymwneud â'r bod yn ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r Helping AJ bring his pirate look to life is the team from Differently Enabled. Its aim is to make fashion more accessible for disabled people.

I was thinking two things that I picked up. Potentially actually taking down the volume a bit. Uh yna, yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna The pirate shirt that is evolving in front of my eyes on a computer screen is being designed for AJ to wear at a fashion show. But not just any fashion show, the Runway of Dreams, part of New York Fashion Week, which showcases the best in fashion for people with disabilities.

from my experiences, you know, growing up in the nineties with disabilities, it was always

Os ydych chi'n disabod, rydych chi'n ei wneud, ac rydych chi'n ei wneud. Rwy'n ydych chi'n ei wneud, mae'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd

That's a wonderful thing. Fashion's not frivolous. It's really important and everyone should have the opportunity. And even if you want to shun it, you should still have the opportunity to shun it. It doesn't matter. You're still expressing yourself with clothing. Craig Crawford is the founder of the company. And some of our clients want to look more symmetrical. Others want to celebrate their asymmetry. And it's up to them, isn't it? If that makes sense. Thanks too. Yeah.

But Craig didn't always see things this way. Despite a 30-year career in high fashion, it wasn't until March 2020, when he was fighting for his life after contracting COVID-19, that he began to see things differently. I couldn't even stand. It was my occupational therapist, Michael, who said to me, The sooner we get you out of this hospital gown and into your own clothes, the faster the trajectory will be for your healing.

But none of his clothes worked. Some were too flimsy and he didn't have the strength to secure them, while others were too difficult to remove when he tried to use the bathroom, as he found to his embarrassment. And Michael walked in as that had just happened and said, That's okay. We've learned you need elastic waste And I'm like, What do you mean I've always been able to pick what I want, where would I want. It was always the consumer's issue.

You you needed to lose weight if you didn't fit into the clothes or if they were too expensive, you're supposed to save your money and not buy so much. And it was when suddenly I was on the other side of that going, Oh my gosh, we've been so arrogant. So many people have no relationship with fashion because we've ignored these people.

As a fashion insider, Craig thinks a system to enable faster, more accurate measurements will help speed up the design process. So, working with a number of partners, he's trialling a variety of scanners for customers to use at home to reproduce an accurate avatar from a series of photos.

The vision is to be able to allow a consumer to take a picture of themselves, something that will work easily and in an ideal world go straight to pattern. We don't want a consumer to have to go to a destination and go into some sort of scanner. Um that's Difficult and who wants to do that? Today, AJ is testing out one of the scanning systems that Craig is trialling. Uh what is your I don't know my heights in centimetres. Uh five feet eight inches. Okay.

Alright, now we're gonna start scanning and I'm gonna get out of the way. I'll move over here where you are. So if we hit start scan, it'll tell us what to do. Place your phone on the floor, leaning it against a wall. Kindly step back to continue with the scanning process. Thank you. Please get into cactus pose. Rotate upper body. Turn ninety degrees to the left. Please get into cactus pose. I'm checking out. Look straight ahead. Scanning complete. That was so simple. Yes, exactly. Now it works.

Claire Bros, who brought us that report, is here now. And Claire, I feel like I just stepped into the matrix. All this sounds so futuristic. So this is a system that scans one's body in order to get the best fit for their clothes. But how accurate is this? Well, as long as you know how to stand in cactus pose, that's arms out, level with shoulders, elbows bent and fingers pointing toward the sky. Okay.

They're pretty good. Um certainly this scanner seemed to be pretty accurate. Craig and his team were really pleased with the measurements the scanner gauged. Um they match pretty closely with those taken with an old fashioned tape measure. Okay. But it wasn't ideal as AJ had to get out of his wheelchair and stand in a supportive frame for this. Um otherwise the scanner would get confused by the outline of the chair. Right, right. And Claire, how long before this goes mainstream?

Mm. Well, Craig was telling me it's likely a couple of years away. There are plenty more partners to work with. They really need to refine the tech so it's easy and accurate for all disabilities. And he was telling me that, for example, there's a lot of built-in biases to the software they've trialled so far, which assume symmetry to a body and assume a certain kind of proportion. But he's confident that when this text does come, it could go mainstream so everyone could benefit. Mm.

Mm-hmm. Well, it's clear that there's still a lot more that needs to be done, but this is definitely a solution that was tailored for people fixing the world. So thank you for what we've heard today, Claire. Thanks, Myra.

That's all from us today, but if you've got any other tips on ways that fashion can be more accessible and functional, I'd like to hear about Send me an email or a voice note to PeopleFixing the World at bbc.co.uk and I'll be back next week with more great solutions. Until then, thanks for listening. Now, since we last spoke to these two amazing women, Shamla and Alma, they have been in touch and they sent us this.

Hi Myra. Hi people Fixing the World team. I hope you all are doing well. This is Shamla here from Singapore. And this is Delma from South Africa. Hi everyone. It's good to Back on the program. Well we just wanted to drop a quick call to let you know. that after meeting up with uh Delma and the team, um, we've actually had a fantastic conversation going on. So didn't just end there. We picked it up. We learnt a lot from each other. And it's been absolutely

Fantastic. Definitely. And we actually started sharing ideas. And um we've been working on how to actually build awareness because we've discovered that in both our communities and our countries awareness is very, very small. So we needed to increase that and we've been sharing ideas and it's coming up. Thank you, team. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't say thank you enough. Bye.

It's such a treat knowing that this program can help people connect and also inspire others to start solutions. So remember to invite more people to listen and subscribe to People Fixing the World.