London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Oct 18, 2025

This Is What’s Missing in Fashion’s Inclusivity Movement

This Is What’s Missing in Fashion’s Inclusivity Movement

Despite the industry’s push for greater diversity and inclusivity, Fashion Week is still leaving out the disabled community. Will spring 2022 be the season we start seeing adaptive fashion and disabled models on the runway?

New York Fashion Week is 10 days away, and we’re already anticipating the week’s big themes. Some of us are predicting a roaring ’20s-style exuberance, albeit one slightly dulled by the Delta variant; sustainability will surely be a talking point, given the industry’s urgent need to address climate change; and we’re continuing to push for greater inclusivity and diversity on and off the runways. The Black in Fashion Council showroom is returning for a third season with an exciting roster of young Black designers, and the CFDA has welcomed dozens of little known up-and-comers to the NYFW calendar for the very first time. There’s a palpable “come one, come all!” spirit-but are all really welcome?

Despite fashion’s rallying cries for inclusion, our understanding is pretty limited: We apply it to race, gender, sexuality, age, size, and religion, but rarely to one’s abilities. In my almost-decade of fashion week reporting, I’ve never heard a designer mention how their collection might appeal to someone with limited use of their arms or how a new trouser would work for someone with a prosthetic. I can think of just one or two instances when our seasonal trend report has featured a look worn by a disabled model. How did those standing-room-only venues of seasons past work out for guests in wheelchairs? And have runway show producers considered the sensitivities of epileptic and visually-impaired people when they designed their lighting?



If those questions have never crossed your mind, you’re hardly alone. It’s a chicken-and-the-egg problem: Because we rarely see disabled people at Fashion Week-on the runway, in the audience, or in the backstage crush-we don’t consider how the shows and collections might relate to them. And because the shows and collections don’t relate to them… we don’t see disabled people at Fashion Week. Thus the cycle continues. The concern is the same as the one created by decades of exclusively white, size-00 models: “Fashion is giving people a warped view of what the world looks like,” Christina Mallon, the chief brand officer at Open Style Lab, says. “Fashion and beauty and the runway create culture, and we need to create a culture that’s truly inclusive.”



The optics of the runways don’t accurately reflect the demand for adaptive fashion, i.e. clothing and accessories designed for people with disabilities. The market is expected to grow to $400 billion by 2026. Target, Nike, and JC Penney have introduced adaptive products, and e-commerce platforms like Juniper Unlimited stock a few dozen small adaptive brands. While these are essential steps in meeting the needs of disabled shoppers, the clothes tend to be more functional than fashionable; when it comes to luxury ready-to-wear, there’s virtually nothing.

“The market needs a high-end voice,” says Maria O’Sullivan-Abeyratne, CEO and founder of Adaptista, a fashion-forward adaptive platform launching in November. “In the history of the internet, disabled people have never been able to go to a luxury brand’s website and buy anything, really, unless it’s a candle.” Adaptista will offer a range of adaptive items at different price points, but the overall feel will be significantly more elevated than most adaptive platforms out there.

The question then becomes if and when ready-to-wear and luxury brands will create products that can be sold on Adaptista. While adaptive design can pose challenges-O’Sullivan-Abeyratne acknowledged that for most brands, it’s an entirely new market-independent labels like Chromat and Collina Strada are already making beautiful clothes for people with disabilities. (See: Aaron Philip in Collina Strada’s fall 2021 lookbook and Mama Cax’s turns in multiple Chromat shows.) Imagine the creative solutions, collections, and content the world’s most famous and beloved brands could come up with.



So far, Tommy Hilfiger is the only global designer to invest heavily in adaptive fashion; he launched his successful Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive line in 2017. (It’s mostly sportswear and basics, but feels more “designed” than other adaptive brands.) His fall 2021 Adaptive collection will debut on this year’s Runway of Dreams show on September 9th. “When we launched, no other global lifestyle brand was modifying their clothing for people with disabilities-we were the first,” explains Sarah Horton, a senior director of innovation and integrated marketing at the brand. “The fashion industry focused only on a few aspects of inclusion. There was no existing blueprint-our brand built the model from the ground up.”

If Hilfiger’s “blueprint” seems daunting to other designers, Mallon insists there are small, inexpensive changes any brand can make to boost the accessibility of their collections now. “Tommy Hilfiger can create a separate line because it’s a global company, but for smaller designers, it’s smart to keep everything in one brand,” Mallon explains. She named Chromat’s Becca McCharen-Tran as an example: “Inclusivity is the cornerstone of her brand, and Becca uses this concept of universal design,” Mallon says. “Her adaptive garments still work for everyone else. A separate collection doesn’t have economy of scale, and then you have the issue of the clothes being too expensive to be accessible. So making garments that work for a large number of people-whether they’re disabled or not-can future-proof you.”

O’Sullivan-Abeyratne has another term for it: “accidentally adaptive.” She and Mallon both wear a lot of Pleats Please by Issey Miyake because the signature knife-pleated dresses and separates are stretchy, comfortable, and happen to come without zippers or buttons. (O’Sullivan-Abeyratne has ankylosing spondylitis, a rare form of arthritis that affects her spine, and Mallon’s arms are paralyzed due to a motor neuron disease.) “A lot of brands are actually catering to the disabled community already, but they have no idea,” O’Sullivan-Abeyratne adds. “But a lot of the hesitancy just [comes down to] fear. Designers are afraid to enter the adaptive market because they think they’ll make a mistake or say the wrong thing, but there are so many ways they can get started. There are magnetic zippers that look exactly like regular zippers, but would give someone who’s had a stroke or has a limb difference the freedom to dress themselves. Or you can use snaps instead of buttons, which a lot of designers already do,” she adds. “It really just takes a little bit more thinking in design, and a lot more talking to people who need this kind of clothing.”



O’Sullivan-Abeyratne pointed out that between 20 and 26% of the U.S. population has some kind of disability; globally, it’s an estimated 1 billion people, and the number is expected to rise. Mallon said she’s received numerous calls from COVID-19 survivors with long-haul effects that unexpectedly put them in wheelchairs. “This is going to create a radical change in the fashion industry, because there are a lot of people becoming disabled who weren’t before, and they’re realizing they’ve been completely left out of design decisions,” she says.

It wasn’t until sustainability and climate change became a key theme of the ready-to-wear and couture shows that the industry began taking real action; the same was true of the call for diversity several years back. To see adaptive designs and disabled models at the spring 2022 shows would instantly accelerate the movement and influence greater cultural change. “I do expect to see an increase of models with disabilities at the shows this September,” Mallon says. But what’s missing, she says, is commitment from brands to actually address their needs. “I think everyone is waking up to this movement, but the brands aren’t acting yet, and we need to hold them accountable.”

Independent designers like Chromat, Collina Strada, and Christian Siriano are indeed a glimmer of hope. News broke earlier this year that Siriano was collaborating with Selma Blair on an adaptive line, prompted by Blair’s struggle to find clothes that accommodate her needs after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018. Siriano’s team declined to share details or a launch date, but confirmed the project was in the works. “I think that will really change things, because Christian is already on the runway at New York Fashion Week,” Mallon adds.



In the near term, Chromat’s show on September 12th is likely to be a highlight of NYFW: McCharen-Tran is introducing a new range of swimsuits designed for trans women, in part inspired by her frequent collaborator, the artist and trans rights activist Tourmaline. The bikinis will come with varying levels of coverage, and some pieces will be convertible, like a thong that turns into a skirt. It’s yet another breakthrough for a designer who’s been committed to body positivity in every way since 2010, both in casting models of different backgrounds, sizes, ages, and abilities and in creating clothes that work for different body types. “We’re making garments that help people feel more comfortable in their bodies and create new lanes for how they see themselves,” she says. “When I think of ‘adaptive,’ I think of fully morphing and transforming-something that can really adapt to a person.” Whether that person has a disability, is curvy, or had a mastectomy is hardly the point.

Will this be the season McCharen-Tran’s peers follow her lead? “I’d love to see more disabled people on the runways and in campaigns, and more plus-size models,” she says. “Designers have gotten the memo about casting racially diverse models, but that’s not where it ends-there’s age, gender, ability… And the harder question is who are the designers, who are the owners of the brands? Are they diverse, too? That’s when we will really see true change.”

On that note, Mallon pointed out that even in the adaptive market, few brands are actually designed by someone with a disability. It’s an issue that ultimately comes down to access to education: “The fashion schools aren’t accessible,” she says. “We have to democratize fashion design and make sure we’re thinking about accessibility at every point if we want to see disabled designers at Fashion Week.”

Adaptista is sponsoring a disabled student to complete a degree in fashion design next year, and O’Sullivan-Abeyratne has two adaptive collections of her own in the works: a wedding collection, inspired by her own struggle to find a wedding dress that worked for her, as well as a fetish and bondage line, “because people just don’t think that anyone with a disability has a sex life!” she says.

Beyond what we see on the runways next month, Sinéad Burke, CEO of Tilting the Lens and a frequent Fashion Week attendee, hopes the shows themselves will become more welcoming to disabled guests, too. “Every designer and PR agency should be asking their design team, production team, models, and attendees, ‘Do you have any accessibility requirements?’ and have resources available to them,” she says. “This might reveal that the physical space the brand has used every season is inaccessible to those who are wheelchair users, or that the flashing lights provide overstimulation for autistic people, or that having access to a mental health professional backstage [would be] a support for the busiest part of the fashion calendar.”

O’Sullivan-Abeyratne adds that press materials could be printed in braille, and there are small tweaks in music, seating, walkways, and transportation that should be considered. “It’s not going to change overnight,” adds. “But even if one of these small ideas sticks with someone, they will accumulate and help shape the future.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
S&P Downgrades France’s Credit Rating, Citing Soaring Debt and Political Instability
Ofcom Rules BBC’s Gaza Documentary ‘Materially Misleading’ Over Narrator’s Hamas Ties
Diane Keaton’s Cause of Death Revealed as Pneumonia, Family Confirms
Former Lostprophets Frontman Ian Watkins Stabbed to Death in British Prison
"The Tsunami Is Coming, and It’s Massive": The World’s Richest Man Unveils a New AI Vision
Outsider, Heroine, Trailblazer: Diane Keaton Was Always a Little Strange — and Forever One of a Kind
Dramatic Development in the Death of 'Mango' Founder: Billionaire's Son Suspected of Murder
Two Years of Darkness: The Harrowing Testimonies of Israeli Hostages Emerging From Gaza Captivity
EU Moves to Use Frozen Russian Assets to Buy U.S. Weapons for Ukraine
Europe Emerges as the Biggest Casualty in U.S.-China Rare Earth Rivalry
HSBC Confronts Strategic Crossroads as NAB Seeks Only Retail Arm in Australia Exit
U.S. Chamber Sues Trump Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Shenzhen Expo Spotlights China’s Quantum Step in Semiconductor Self-Reliance
China Accelerates to the Forefront in Global Nuclear Fusion Race
Yachts, Private Jets, and a Picasso Painting: Exposed as 'One of the Largest Frauds in History'
Australia’s Wedgetail Spies Aid NATO Response as Russian MiGs Breach Estonian Airspace
McGowan Urges Chalmers to Cut Spending Over Tax Hike to Close $20 Billion Budget Gap
Victoria Orders Review of Transgender Prison Placement Amid Safety Concerns for Female Inmates
U.S. Treasury Mobilises New $20 Billion Debt Facility to Stabilise Argentina
French Business Leaders Decry Budget as Macron’s Pro-Enterprise Promise Undermined
Trump Claims Modi Pledged India Would End Russian Oil Imports Amid U.S. Tariff Pressure
Surging AI Startup Valuations Fuel Bubble Concerns Among Top Investors
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
×