Fashion is made of fleeting moments: runway shows last 10 to 15 minutes; trends go from 1 to 3 months; then there are temporary obsessions that you can fulfil almost immediately thanks to crazily fast see-now-buy-now-get-in-one hour schemes. Yet if the industry wants to find new markets and prove of being inclusive as it preaches to be, it should start refocusing on producing things that last a bit longer and that cater to different categories of consumers as well.
Tommy Hilfiger released for example earlier on this week in the US a clothing collection for adults with disabilities. The collection is called Tommy Adaptive and includes 37 men's and 34 women's designs.
The styles don't show many differences from what the brand usually offers, so you get classic sportswear pieces including polo T-shirts, summer dresses and denim garments, but with key features in their construction.
The designs include indeed adjusted openings and hems that can fit leg braces, while magnetic zippers and Velcro closures make things easier for people with one hand and pull-on loops that fit around the wrist help in pulling up trousers independently. The Tommy Adaptive items are priced in line with the products included in other collections by the same brand and they come in sizes up to XXL for men and 18 for women.
This is a new development for Hilfiger that started producing adaptive clothing for children in February 2016 in partnership with adaptive shirting brand MagnaReady and organisation Runway of Dreams, founded by Mindy Scheier.
A fashion designer and the mother of a child with a rare type of muscular dystrophy, Scheier was prompted to find new solutions when her son told her he wanted to wear jeans to fit in with his friends at school. The designer therefore tried to transform her son's clothes, replacing buttons and zippers, and applying further adjustments.
The idea proved rather successful for Tommy Hilfiger and the brand ended up creating two collections for children before moving onto this capsule for adults.
The company is at the moment among the first mainstream fashion labels to offer adaptive clothing for grown ups, but others may soon be following: Target started selling sensory-friendly items for children two months ago and, from tomorrow, it will expand its offer with adaptive clothing for children as part of its Cat & Jack line. Items will include zip-off sleeves, side and back snap-and-zip closures and hidden openings for abdominal access.
It is obvious that these companies are suddenly showing an interest in such lines of clothes as they know there is a demand for them and this could therefore prove a very profitable market, but the industry in general is showing positive attitudinal changes - we have for example seen a model with muscular dystrophy - cool Jillian Mercado - in Diesel, Target and Beyoncé's "Formation" tour merchandise campaigns.
Yet investing in such lines means spending money and above all time researching new solutions, speaking to people with disabilities and to their caretakers, and some fashion companies may not be interested in doing so. In a nutshell there are still barriers to overcome and problems to solve (Target said it is evaluating the possibility of including the modified clothing in stores, so for the time being they are mainly sold online...).
But fashion with a function and a purpose, created after listening to the needs of real consumers (and not to the suggestions of vapid advisers and glamorous consultants...), may help the industry turning around and stopping using the words "inclusivity", "democratization" and "empowering" as decorative terms for feel-good press releases. And while it is true that a pair of denim trousers or a dress may not solve the problems of differently abled consumers, they can still have a positive impact on a person's life. Time for fashion designers and brands to leave their ivory towers and glamorous fortresses, face the challenges of real life and help finding clothing solutions for those consumers they have so far neglected.
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