In an ideal world, clothing should always be accessible for everyone and cater to your preferences and necessities. Feeling comfortable in your skin without compromising personal style can seem like a no-brain for most of us-- until your body doesn’t comply with the industry’s standards. For people with disabilities or different body sizes, the lack of accessibility to comfortable, fashionable clothing is one of their many struggles.
That’s why at The Shapes United, we want to help you live your best life, catering to different shapes and sizes and challenging discrimination in the fashion industry. Our adaptive clothing line aims to offer pieces of garments that are stylish, comfortable and easy to wear regardless of your condition or body size. At the same time, it’s imperative to help people understand the common root for all the issues we’re trying to address. We want to build the foundations for that ideal world!
Inaccessibility beyond the closet: the issue with ableism in clothing
First, we need to understand the term ableism. It refers to social prejudices and discriminations against disabled people, rooted in the idea that an abled body will always be superior and people with disabilities should get ‘fixed’ or ‘not get defined by it.’ Ableism can engulf minor misconceptions or attitudes against this group or outright discriminate and isolate them based on their body condition.
In the fashion industry, ableism can help answer why magazines and clothes brands portray a narrow beauty standard that people have recently questioned. Offering clothing in limited sizes that only suits a fully-abled body seems like it leaves many people without many options, right? Besides, many people can suffer from sensory overload when wearing regular clothes because of tags, seams, labels or coarse fabrics. This can happen for a wide variety of reasons like menopause, spectrum disorders or sensory conditions that can limit their options in clothing.
We know that one item of clothing won’t solve the underlying issues with accessibility. However, we can still improve many people’s lives by using inclusive designs and thriving for constant innovation in accessible fashion. Adding our grain of sand to fight against ableism is what keeps us going.
How to open the fashion door to everyone with adaptive clothing
At The Shapes United, we want to help you show your best self without any boundaries. We know that offering clothing with alternative ways to put it on and off can help you feel more comfortable with yourself. Inclusive clothing has helped change the tides inside the fashion industry to hear disabled people’s voices, so we want to continue adding to the cause.
And we are not alone in this endeavour since small designers and other brands have stepped up to the challenge of closing the gap. For example, our sister company, Recovawear, aims to help post-surgical patients in their recovery process with functional clothing. We also work closely with our customer’s feedback to continue improving and expanding our clothing line to continue forward with our mission.
We’ve recently launched our clothing collections solely focused on inclusive, stylish, and functional clothing through our site. But fighting against ableism in fashion it’s not just about offering better-designed clothing. It’s also about spreading the word around and opening a debate on accessibility in society. That’s why we also thrive on curating and sharing interesting content through our social media accounts and our weekly newsletter. If you want to be a part of the change, The Shapes United can be the helping hand you were looking for!
