Innovative Fashion Options for ‘Seated Clientele’

posted on Sep 02 by Brian in the Advocacy, Disability News, Fun, Wheelchair Accessibility category

Fashionwear for People in Wheelchairs

A large percentage of paralyzed wheelchair users are college-age to early-30s, a typically style-conscious demographic. However, clothes are usually designed to look and drape a particular way in a standing pose, and clothes designed for wheelchair wear were pretty much merely blandly functional. Fashioneer Izzy Camilleri is changing both those concepts.

Izzy is creating a line of adaptable — and fashionable — clothing specifically for men and women in wheelchairs. Her “seated clientele”, as she likes to say, have different needs from the items they wear. Those who are sitting all the time face physiological concerns, as well as problematic fabrics that bulk up because gravity doesn’t carry them down the body.

A positive self-image goes a long way toward helping fight depression, too, and something nicer than a t-shirt and sweatpants that is still functionally practical and comfortable for a wheelchair user to wear helps provide some good-looking results. There’s an added sense of pride and self-sufficiency.

Says Peter T. Wilderotter, President and CEO of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation: “Izzy Camilleri’s new line is setting the bar for adaptive fashion…providing individuals living with spinal cord injuries and paralysis the opportunity to wear functional, thoughtful clothing which is not only easy to wear, but fashion forward.”

Technical challenges were daunting, but Izzy began creating patterns by just following the line of the seated body. In her pioneering collection, IZ Adaptive, contemporary pants are cut shorter in the front, while jackets are cut shorter in the back (yet both retain an aesthetic length in the front). Bulk is Out, strategically-placed zippers are In. Dresses, robes, evening wear and even bridal gowns are crafted for function, fashion and comfort.

Izzy Camilleri’s innovative talent, compassion and understanding is allowing wheelchair users to be further included – in style! You can find out more about Izzy Camilleri’s fashions at her site — www.izadaptive.com — and in the videos below.

What’s your style, and what does it mean to you?