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Cat and Rosemary
About
In 2022 OSL partnered with Genentech, to work with the Spinal Muscular Atrophy community in adapting/designing 11 outfits that would be showcased as a prelude to New York Fashion Week. This was the first time a fashion show centered around the inclusion of people with disabilities showed on the NYFW calendar and Elle magazine named the show as a top 5 moment of NYFW. This is an example of the growing awareness and acceptance in the fashion industry. The show was featured in over 130 news stories. From Forbes, Vogue and Elle magazine, the live streamed event was viewed over 117,000 times, and over 9.8 million people were exposed to posts and videos on social media. The event was a monumental moment in how accessible fashion was talked about, bringing awareness across different disciplines, and further exposing the need for fashion accessibility.
Case Study
OSL Fellows worked with Shane and his wife Hannah to rethink ‘glam’. Shane and Hannah, share their relationship on social media, breaking down barriers of stigma associated with intimacy and relationships when it comes to people with disabilities and non-disabled partners. Usually choosing comfort over style, the fellows were challenged with creating a comfortable, easy to wear velvet suit with Shane to wear down the runway.
OSL Fellows worked with Shane and his wife Hannah to rethink ‘glam’. Shane and Hannah, share their relationship on social media, breaking down barriers of stigma associated with intimacy and relationships when it comes to people with disabilities and non-disabled partners. Usually choosing comfort over style, the fellows were challenged with creating a comfortable, easy to wear velvet suit with Shane to wear down the runway.
Examples of alterations
* Created leggings designed to fit the shape of Shanes legs, which were worn as a base garment. Then attach the velvet suit with side poppers to only the front side of the pants. This allowed Shane the comfort of feeling like he was sitting in leggings, but looking like he was wearing a velvet suit.
* Splitting the jacket down the middle at the back so that each arm could be put on separately.
* Adding stretch panels to the elbows to reduce fabric bunching up at the lock of the elbow.
* Created leggings designed to fit the shape of Shanes legs, which were worn as a base garment. Then attach the velvet suit with side poppers to only the front side of the pants. This allowed Shane the comfort of feeling like he was sitting in leggings, but looking like he was wearing a velvet suit.
* Splitting the jacket down the middle at the back so that each arm could be put on separately.
* Adding stretch panels to the elbows to reduce fabric bunching up at the lock of the elbow.
Biggest takeaways
It gives me hope that fashion and accessibility can start having more babies!
Sawson, 2022
I loved how collaborative the process was. It was great getting such a say in my outfit and look. And including my poetry was awesome.
Allegra, 2022
It was amazing to learn that there are fashion designers and companies like OSL willing to be inclusive with their designs.
Allegra