PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao 0:02
By the time I reached my max height of five three, I'd sworn off ever finding cute, affordable jeans that fit me. If they were stylish, they either felt comfortable in the waist, but were saggy in the butt and much too long, or they were the right length and pinched my waist. Sometimes I'd venture to the petite department, only to find drab business clothes and mom jeans before mom jeans were cool, neither of which were going to pass the high school style test.
So I was left to my own devices. I tried hemming tape, which never lasted a full day, and platform tennis shoes which were not comfortable, I resigned to this awkward, fitting Jean fate for about a decade, until more petite fashion designers entered the marketplace and stylish petite options became more available and affordable. Standard sizing doesn't work for so many bodies and beyond sizes, there are lots of other ways our fashion industry's norms exclude bodies with different needs. So who is bridging that gap?
This is embodied. Our show about sex relationships and your health. I'm Anita Rao.
Long before mainstream designers like Tommy Hilfiger or JC Penney started adaptive clothing lines people with disabilities were finding ways to innovate and make garments that accommodate a broad range of physical and sensory needs. And like most fashion designers, their focus isn't just on the function of clothing, but also the ways it makes room for creativity and self expression. Today, we're going to meet three disabled folks who've participated in various stages of the clothing design process, from creation and design to manufacturing and marketing. With me. First is Dr Ben Barry, the Dean of fashion at Parsons School of Design. Hey, Ben, welcome to embodied. Hello.
Ben Barry 2:03
It's so nice to be here.
Anita Rao 2:04
I would love to start with a quick self describe. Tell us about the look that you are wearing today.
Ben Barry 2:10
I am a white, queer cisgender man. I'm disabled with low vision. I have short brown hair, brown eyes, and I'm wearing gold rimmed glasses. Today. Is a very casual look. I'm wearing a black T shirt and a black cap that says you are on native land by urban Native era.
Anita Rao 2:29
I love it so you have a strong sense of style and fashion. And this emerged very early, a young kid, like four or five years old, you already knew that you loved clothes? Is there an early memory that comes to mind of feeling this deep connection with clothing?
Ben Barry 2:48
As a child, I would always go through my grandmother's closets, her kitchen, and create these really fabulous looks. I remember turning like a tea cozy into a hat, an apron, into this like incredible scarf and just playing with looks. And really, for me, it was about that affective, sensory feeling of how the texture, the weight of fabrics just felt as they wrapped around my body.
Anita Rao 3:15
You described yourself as low vision, and I know that as you experienced vision changes in your childhood, the sensory aspect of clothes became more and more important to you. Talk to me about the kind of sensory experience you were seeking through clothing choice.
Ben Barry 3:31
I think clothing for me was really about the joy that the feeling the texture brought to how I felt in my body. There was something certainly very grounding about the way jewelry, the way clothing felt on my skin, the way it grounded me, the way I could use it to stim it's really just about the effectiveness that inspired my own emotions and my sense of like joy and like coming into my own, like body, mind.
Anita Rao 3:59
I have heard you tell a story of yourself as a little kid, just kind of like rubbing sequins with your hand. And I could immediately kind of feel that sensory experience that a sequin can give you that is different from what a sequin looks like per se,
Ben Barry 4:13
absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I love sparkle. I love sequins. And for me so much, it wasn't just about but a visual effect of it. It was really about how that felt, to the touch, the sound it made. And I think then moving into the fashion industry, and particularly moving into fashion education, there was really a gap. I was confronted with this focus of fashion that was so much on the visual impact. When I moved into fashion education, so much of what we were teaching students was to design a visual statement for a photograph for the runway, and that really disconnected from my own experience with fashion and the experience of so many of my friends and folks in my community.
Anita Rao 4:58
You were really. Precocious kid and developed early this interest in thinking about different aspects of the fashion industry. In part by necessity, you had a friend when you were 14 who was turned away from a bunch of modeling agencies because of her body size, and you decided to represent her a 14 year old modeling agent. So as you kind of dipped your toe into that world, what did you begin to notice about how bodies of different sizes and different abilities were catered to in the industry?
Ben Barry 5:31
I noticed that so much of fashion, at least fashion is defined by a particular industry was grounded in hierarchy and division. It was about privileging particular bodies as beautiful as desirable, and immediately excluding separating other bodies, and that did not reflect the reality of my life. It certainly didn't reflect the reality of my friends and families, and even more so, I saw the very real harm that that was causing for folks, how it made them one just feel alienated and isolated in their own bodies, and how it made them, in many ways, feel disconnected from that joy and self discovery that fashion can bring.
Anita Rao 6:17
How does this hierarchy impact the clothing options for disabled folks in particular.
Ben Barry 6:23
Well, I think that so much of the design process is based on this, quote, standardized or normative body. And students are taught designers design for a particular body shape, often one that is non disabled, tall, thin, based on like white, European features. And then clothing can be changed, modified, but it's all based on the premise that there's one universal, idealized body from which we design. And of course, for fashion design, that's not the way many people design clothing or have designed clothing in the past, but that's certainly been the dominant practice in the global modern fashion industry,
Anita Rao 7:04
and it is that that, in many ways, has led to the term adaptive clothing. It's a term that has become better known in the past decade or so as mainstream brands have added these adaptive clothing lines to their websites, and this includes everything from like magnetic fasteners to sensory friendly materials to pocketless pants. I'd love for you to kind of orient us to how mainstream fashion has entered this adaptive clothing space, and maybe talk about the term adaptive as part of that.
Ben Barry 7:39
I think it's important to recognize that disabled folks have always been fashion designers and fashion innovators. They've always dressed their bodies, and often there have not been clothes that have been available and accessible by fashion designers and fashion brands. And so as a result, they have changed clothes, hacked clothes, tinkered with clothes to make them support their bodies and express their identities. The fashion industry uses this term or moniker, adaptive fashion as a category for clothing for folks, for disabled folks, and I think in some ways, in a very crowded fashion market, this is one way to perhaps identify or denote that these clothes are for disabled folks.
But on the other hand, I think there's some challenges with adaptive fashion. I think the term itself immediately upholds this hierarchy of fashion, right? It assumes that there's this normative body from which we design, which is a non disabled body, and then we can adapt or change clothing to support disabled folks. The adaptive fashion market also has many challenges. Often it's privileging physical or mobility disabilities. Often it's only looking at disability as a single access of identity, not recognizing the various ways that disabled folks are not only diverse in their disability experiences, but diverse in their genders, their races, their cultures, and often, adaptive fashion can be quite expensive, right?
It's also doesn't recognize that disabled folks are obviously marginalized in many ways, from employment and from income because of ableism, and as a result, that it restricts who can actually buy adaptive fashion.
Anita Rao 9:20
We are going to meet a couple of folks later on in the show who are designers and who have really been trying to create products that meet the needs that they have. But I'm curious if there is an example of a clothing item that has become part of your wardrobe that has resulted from a need that you didn't see met in the clothing that was out there.
Ben Barry 9:45
So as an academic dean, one of the highlights of my year every year, annually, is attending graduation and celebrating with students who are graduating from Parsons. And a big part of that is the. Academic regalia, and as a dean wearing an academic robe.
So for the first time, I worked with one of our master students, John te come who's an indigenous student, and created this amazing black regalia for me that has like feathered shoulders and this amazing fringe drape, and it is the most like powerful sensory embodied experience throughout graduation is, yeah, as names are being called, which can, you know, go on, which is exciting, but can also go on for a while. I can run my fingers right through the fringe to really ground myself when I put it on. I feel the expanded shoulders, and I can the feathers of the cape, the kind of brush against my neck as I get up to give a speech, and, you know, announce the students.
And it really, for me, just embodies this like moment of celebration and really moving into the space in a way that just connects this outfit to my body, to the moment. And so that always is a that's a big highlight for me, and that's really something that I personally look for in clothing that brings me joy and that's meaningful to me.
Anita Rao 11:15
I absolutely love that visual and hearing Ben, someone who knows and loves clothing describe it helps me understand the artistry needed to create a great piece. We're gonna get more into that artistic side of fashion design. Just after the break when we meet a disabled creator whose clothes are spandex, vibrant and flattering for a wide range of bodies, we'll be right back.
This is embodied. I'm Anita Rao. Adaptive clothing lines are now entering the main stream. You can find adaptive options at places like Target, Victoria's Secret or Nike. But for folks with disabilities, the need for garments that combine function with fashion is anything but new. Take, for example, Gladys Reed, who, in 1948 invented a belt with pockets to carry the battery pack for her hearing aid. Or Helen Cookman, the Deaf fashion designer who collaborated with Levi's in the 1970s to create a pair of jeans specifically for folks using wheelchairs and other mobility aids.
One contemporary designer who's creating with disabled bodies in mind is Sky Cubacub. They're the founder of Rebirth Garments, a line of clothing and accessories made for queer disabled folks of all ages, genders and sizes. Hey, Sky, welcome to embodied.
Sky Cubacub 12:35
Thank you for having me.
Anita Rao 12:36
So in just moments, looking through your website, it is clear how central joy and vibrant color are to your designs at Rebirth Garments, and I would love if you could give us a quick self describe and share a bit about what you're wearing today.
Sky Cubacub 12:54
Of course, yeah, I'm wearing my signature pink scale-mail head piece. It's very stimmy and looks like dragon scales or a rainbow fish on my head. I'm wearing a free the armpit, free the tummy, bike tard in a watermelon print with some other neon colors, and I'm a small Philippinx xenogender Queer with non apparent disabilities, and I have some makeup that looks like spiky triangles under one eye. It's asymmetrical eyeliner.
Anita Rao 13:37
I love it. Both you and Ben have described clothing in a way that's related to stimming. Could you maybe help us understand a bit about how stimming, kind of self stimulating behavior has been a part of your relationship with clothing ever since you were a little kid?
Sky Cubacub 13:59
Yeah, I feel like it's completely the reason why I got into fashion. I would always do very repetitive movements, and needed to always have my hands moving and making things. I just basically mostly used crafting as my stims. So I started out with beading. And then when I was 12, I saw chain mail, and I was like, wow, that is like beading only way cooler. People always think about what nights wear when they think of chain mail, I love it. Yeah. That was like, how I started making fashion or like things for myself. I was making chain mail jewelry for myself that I would wear all the way up my arms, and then the scale mail and chain mail headpieces that really felt like a weighted blanket for myself.
Anita Rao 14:55
One of the first pieces of clothing that you designed and made from start to. Finish for someone else was for your cousin, Sophie, who has a nerve condition and produces excess saliva, and it was this terry cloth backed scarf that was very particularly tailored to her needs. So can you tell me a bit about that piece and how you balanced form, function and fashion in that design,
Sky Cubacub 15:22
yeah, for Sophie, I screen printed some jersey fabric with these triangle prints that I created based off of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, and then I backed it with like an old towel, and she always wore the like, they called them drool scarves. And I wanted to make a really cute one that had, yeah, just a little bit more personality and a little bit more custom and fun and pretty. So, yeah, that was the first garment item that I made specifically for another person with disability in mind.
Anita Rao 16:03
And I know that after you did that, Sophie's mom was impressed, and then suggested that you make an entire clothing line for disabled kids, but you had kind of been having your own experiences in parallel with gender identity and physical health and trying to find clothing that met your needs, so it pointed you in a slightly different direction that led you to start your company, rebirth garment. So tell me about some of the needs and desires that were emerging for you around clothing that encouraged you to create your own company.
Sky Cubacub 16:38
I always had sensory sensitivities connected to my neurodivergencies. I couldn't wear seams touching my body for a lot of clothing, like especially socks and underwear. I had to wear inside out for a really long time in high school, I started getting really interested in gender affirming undergarments and really obsessing over them and desiring them when I was kind of feeling different than other folks.
Then I met my first non binary friend when I was 18, and I was like, oh, that's, that's what I am. I like, so, yeah, then I was just very much in like, PTSD, needing to stim and chain mail all the time. And I made this whole chain mail collection in high school, but my teachers were like, Oh, you need to come up with something that could go underneath the clothing, because when you're in college, you can be as naked as you want, but right now, we're gonna get in trouble from parents, because all of your clothing is to see through.
So I learned how to sew spandex unitards from my first girlfriend's mom, and that like that really opened up a lot for me learning how to use the serger, and when I kind of realized that I could make myself gender affirming under garments using the serger, then I started making garments that didn't necessarily have to have chain mail completely covering. They weren't just base garments like they I started to focus on on those.
Anita Rao 18:25
I want to hear about how you decided to make a brand that incorporated both the needs of trans folks and disabled folks, because I know initially you were thinking of creating two separate lines, one that might primarily focus on undergarments, and one that might primarily cater to things that disabled folks reached out and said they wanted, but you decided to merge those two and knew that you wanted a brand that kind of worked for folks at all of these intersections. So talk to me about how that starting point informs how you design.
Sky Cubacub 19:01
So I started Rebirth Garments pretty shortly after, I gained a stomach disability. Previous to that, I mostly just was neurodivergent and mad, and I just didn't necessarily have too many besides sensory sensitivities like physical needs with clothing, but yeah, gaining this stomach disability, I no longer could wear hard pants, and I needed to wear only stretchy stuff, which I already knew how to make spandex clothing.
So I was like, great. I can just make myself a whole spandex wardrobe, but I wanted it to also be gender affirming for myself, so I figured that if I was both queer, non binary and disabled, then probably there were other folks who were queer and disabled who wanted clothing that showed off all of their identities as well as. Yeah, being size inclusive. And you know, anybody of any age could wear the clothing too.
Anita Rao 20:06
well. Yeah, you include a lot of spandex is one of the core things that you create with. And you described your clothing desires as somewhat related to things that happened in the late 19th century, when there was a pushback on corsets and there was a move to kind of allow women to have more physical freedom and movement in the clothes that they wear. I'm curious how you have seen your pieces change how people are able to move through the world, how your pieces help people kind of feel a more expansive sense of their body.
Sky Cubacub 20:43
Yeah. So I'll always do this interview with all of the models that I work with. I would ask them what parts of their bodies they wanted to highlight, what parts they feel vulnerable about, what would show off their gender expression best, and then what would make clothing more accessible to their bodies. So I would do this interview and create, like, basically a dream look for folks, and immediately, when they would put it on, I could see, like so much more confidence.
I get a lot of folks who've gotten their first chest binder or gaff, or who have worn chest binders or gaps for a long time but have only had super uncomfortable ones, and mine are usually pretty easy to put on and yeah, that just like changes their whole like posture and the way that they carry themselves, primarily when I want to start creating gender affirming undergarments. I wanted to be able to make, like, neon chest binders and packing garments for myself so that I could, like, really want to show it off at the same time as still being gender affirmed, whereas so many of those garments used to be made where, like, folks would feel embarrassed if they let their like binder show or something.
So, yeah, mine's all about radical visibility, which I it's my manifesto that I wrote based off of the Rational Dress movement. And it's all about, yeah, a queer crip dress reform movement that takes those principles of rational address and then queers it encrypts it for our needs as marginalized folks. And yeah.
Anita Rao 22:29
I love that. And I want to bring Dr Ben Barry back into the conversation. Here he is the dean of fashion at Parsons School of Design, and there's so much Ben that Sky is talking about that points to the need for fashion style, brightness, not just function, which is obviously a key distinction in thinking about design, designing clothes that people actually really want, versus just clothes that people can use. And I know that in your role at Parsons, you are really trying to get students to operate from a place that desires disability, versus adapting a garment for a disabled body. So can you talk to me about some of the tools and techniques that you use to prompt that shift in thinking for your students?
Ben Barry 23:16
I mean, first of all, I have to say everything Sky is doing, they're really a model and their design philosophy and work as a model in what the possibilities of a future that centers disability and fashion is like.
So often when clothing has been designed for disabled folks, it's been designed without considering esthetics, solely focused on function or if esthetics are considered. It's based on this, really folks who are most approximate to power, so, like white cis often a very like traditional, conservative esthetic access features are often hidden, where we see magnets hidden within a shirt.
Or it's this idea that we should be ashamed that we're disabled, and I think the philosophy is to move far away from that and recognizing that fashion design is an opportunity, not just to desire disability and center disability, but recognizing the creative possibilities that disability brings to fashion, how disability is an opening for new shapes, new esthetics, new textiles, new sensory experiences.
The other shift really is recognizing how disabled people have been excluded from the design process. So often in a corporate fashion setting and in fashion education, we've often followed a process of CO design, and that's often when there is a non disabled design team. Disabled folks are invited in as participants, perhaps at an initial research stage or at a prototype stage to try on garments. Perhaps they're paid an honorarium. They're thanked for their time. The designer or brand says that they've. Included disabled people in the design process, but really disabled folks haven't been centered in leading a design process. There's not adequate compensation and credit, and I think more importantly, there's not pathways for sustainable careers as fashion designers.
So the work really now is also shifting to, how can we create access for disabled folks to move through fashion education and in ways that they can thrive and move into fashion careers as designers and creatives.
Anita Rao 25:33
I love that, and a part of that is really getting to ask people, you know, what do you want? What do you need that you aren't seeing created somewhere else and Sky. You have created a lot of custom garments. You talk to people in depth about what they want and need. Is there an example that you can think of of a need or desire that shifted how you made something that really emerged from that process of allowing the person to be at the very beginning of the process of creation.
Sky Cubacub 26:04
Yeah, so everything I do is custom, but for one of my early Rebirth Garments fashion performances in 2015 I interviewed one of my friends who's a power wheelchair user and a queer femme, and she said that she wanted to feel sexy, and she was also, like, very into mermaids. And were both very into mermaids, and she always wore these, like, really tight, kind of stretchy pencil skirts. So I created this stretchy spandex pencil skirt with garter belt clips on the top of the legs and on the side of the legs, rather than the top and the back, because as a wheelchair user, having things on the back sitting on them would be very uncomfortable. And this connected to what I call the mono thigh high. And it's a pink lace thigh high that looks like a mermaid tail like this is basically all I ever wanted to do. And design is make something that is only possible to wear as a disabled person.
Anita Rao 27:19
I love that. And I'm curious to ask you, I mean, you are so intentional in the pieces that you create, you also allow folks to get garments that are free and reduced price. But how do you think about like, the scalability of a model like yours to make this kind of custom clothing or adaptive and inclusive clothing more accessible beyond like the pressures of put on you as one single designer.
Sky Cubacub 27:52
Yeah. So my approach is that I've pivoted more to teaching youth and teens how to create their own intersectional clothing lines I gained MECFS in 2019 so it has like severely impacted my ability to physically produce work. But I do think that if there was a person who had more energy than me, that they could write grants or get money from institutions where they could use it to subsidize this type of work and make designs based off of the desires and needs of folks. I think it's very possible I just, like, truly cannot do it myself now with the types of disabilities that I have.
Anita Rao 28:41
Ben, I want to kind of put the same question to you. I mean, you have this philosophy and belief that clothing is access to life. Clothing is vital and important. But as we've been talking about, there have been these systemic barriers for disabled designers and models and folks in all parts of the fashion industry getting into the process. How are you thinking about the future of creating a more inclusive fashion ecosystem?
Ben Barry 29:09
Often read, clothing can be so easily written off as trivial or unimportant, and that's often because the folks who write it off have had the privilege of being able to buy or wear anything they want. But clothing is fundamental. It's how we come into our bodies, how we navigate the world, how we can experience feelings of joy.
And of course, it can do the very opposite if we're priced out, sized out, can't find clothing that expresses who we are. I think so much of the move for a more inclusive and just fashion industry is really how do we ensure that there is access for diverse creators and designers to bring their lived experiences to that creative and business process? Because that will help shift and pivot the. Way fashion has run, it'll help shift and pivot this like grow, grow, grow, mindset and philosophy that has driven the industries of business.
It will move away from this idea of a universal body and adapting and shifting for bodies that have been structurally marginalized from fashion. And so a lot of the work now is what does access look like for me in fashion education, and I think disability activist Mia Mingus says access for the sake of access isn't necessarily liberatory. And so it's not just saying here's scholarship dollars, here's funding now come into fashion education, but it's recognizing the very way fashion education and the fashion industry are harmful in their current structures for disabled folks.
We think about the pace. We think about the way a curriculum designed. We think about the way facilities and studios are set up, the culture and the attitudes that people are brought into. And this is right, a cultural change, and it's slow, but it is about, how do we create an industry that values all body minds as they are and allows them to thrive in very real ways in fashion.
Anita Rao 31:10
Sky and Ben are both visionaries, focuses on a reimagined future of fashion that has accessibility at the front. So how do you take these designed pieces and develop her own personal style. Up next, we'll meet someone who's aiming for an iconic look every single day, even if she has to make some of it herself. That's right after this break.
This is embodied. I'm Anita Rao. A more inclusive approach to fashion design means unlearning the idea that there are standard body types, but also means accommodating the many ways that bodies and their needs are constantly evolving, even over the course of a single day.
Samantha Jade Durán 31:53
I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means I use a wheelchair, but I can walk very, very short distances, so depending on the situation, I will decide whether or not to walk. I just wish it was more popular knowledge that ambulatory wheelchair users exist.
Anita Rao 32:10
That is content creator and designer Samantha Jade Duran, better known by her handle a disabled icon, her feed is full of posts about adaptive fashion and push us for a more nuanced understanding of what a disabled body looks like. Hey, Samantha, welcome to the show.
Samantha Jade Durán 32:26
Thank you so much for having me
Anita Rao 32:28
so I've heard you describe your fashion motto before, as if people are gonna stare at my disability, I would rather give them something iconic to look at, which is amazing. What a great motto. Could you give us a visual of you right now? What? What version of iconic Are you serving today?
Samantha Jade Durán 32:48
Thank you. My motto indeed. Well today I am wearing a pink tool beret accompanied by a pink ruffle sleeve, crop top with a slit Maxi pink skirt, as well as my newest addition to my mobility aids, which are my pink bilateral hinged AFOs and a pink telephone purse by Betsy Johnson,
Anita Rao 33:21
okay, AFOs, ankle and foot orthotics. Is that right?
Samantha Jade Durán 33:24
Yes,
Anita Rao 33:25
Amazing. Okay, so, yeah, you you have a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors and bone pain, as well as Ehlers, danlos and other chronic health conditions, which means that your needs can really vary quite a bit day to day. Sometimes you are using these orthotics other times you are using a wheelchair. So talk to me about when and how you first started tweaking your clothes to fit your body's needs as they changed and evolved.
Samantha Jade Durán 33:54
Yes, so I was born with two genetic physical disabilities, and I started having surgery as early as six years old. So at six years old, I had these External Fixators placed on my legs. Essentially, I had, like, lengthening because my right leg was not growing at the same pace as my left due to the bone tumors. And so an external fixator is a metal contraption that goes into your bones and out the other way, and it's pretty clunky.
So this severely restricted the garments that I was able to wear, including my undergarments. When I was six years old, my mom and I had the external fixator on my leg. My mom and I discovered that I could no longer wear traditional underwear, and at the time, adaptive fashion was not that popular, so my mother and I had to resort to customizing my own clothing. So what we. Did was we would cut the sides of my underwear and use safety pins to put it on and take it off, similar to a diaper in that sense, where you close it on the sides, like a side closure. And unfortunately, several times throughout the day, the safety pins would come undone and poke me and cause me to bleed, which was obviously painful, adding even more pain to an already painful situation.
Anita Rao 35:24
So as you got older and got more adept at sewing and creating, you started making your own things so you didn't have to to be as makeshift with Safety Pins and Things could be more comfortable. And just looking through your Instagram, I mean, there's so many amazing pieces that you have created to help manage different kinds of pain and different kinds of needs that you have. And I'd love for you to kind of tell us about the discoveries that you have made about that bridge between adapting a need, adapting something for a need, and making it stylish.
Samantha Jade Durán 36:07
Yeah, so as I've been learning how to sew and really owning in on this skill of making clothes, getting a fabric and turning it into something that helps me get dressed and be independent. I have learned that I think a lot of big fashion, as I say, thinks inside of a narrow box, and they don't try to see how to make more stylish options adaptive to a disabled body.
For example, I absolutely adore halter tops, but unfortunately, I had most of my scapula, aka the shoulder blade, removed due to a massive tumor, and subsequently those muscles were reconstructed. So movements like tying a halter top behind my neck can be very, very difficult and painful for me. As a result, I have, like, basically invented a way to make a halter top accessible for me. Instead of having to tie it behind my head, I sew one strap onto the body of the crop top, and then on the end of the strap, I put a magnetic button, and in the top, where it goes over the neck and then down into the body, I put the other end of the magnetic button, which makes it so much easier to Get dressed.
Anita Rao 37:38
So you you are innovating in real time, but you're also kind of taking things that you need, like these ankle and foot orthotics and making them much more stylish and making them enhance your outfit. And some of your orthotics are so cool, so vibrant and bright, and I love how you style them. So can you describe to me how you approach styling your mobility aids in a way that enhances your outfits?
Samantha Jade Durán 38:07
So the most notable way that I have accessorized my mobility aids and style them is with my manual wheelchair, which I called the bimbo mobile. And and it first started with Izzy wheels, sending me a wheel cover. It's a pink wheel cover with like tigers and leopards on it, so when it rolls, it looks like they're chasing each other. The background is pink. I started with that. After the wheel covers, I got spoke covers, which are usually used on bicycles, on the tires of the bikes.
So then I measured them according to my wheelchairs spokes, cut them and put them on. So I arranged them in like a rainbow design going around my wheel. Then put the wheel cover from Izzy wheels on top. And then from that, I had my dad actually sand down the the paint and spray paint my wheelchair pink with gold accents. It's so beautiful. I I couldn't have had a better dad in my life. I'm so grateful. Yeah, he's the best, and my wheelchair is just a pink, gold, yellow, like beautifully accessorized wheelchair that compliments my outfits in every way, especially now with my pink AFOs.
Anita Rao 39:33
So we've been talking throughout the show about this kind of blend of when disabled folks are creating things for themselves because they don't exist in the marketplace and when and where and how, the mainstream fashion industry is trying to create more options, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully. I'm curious about your take on this. I know you've done some modeling work for. For JCPenney, which started introducing and selling adaptive options for adults pretty recently. But what is your experience working with these bigger brands? Like, where do you feel like they're meeting needs that you have, and where do you feel like you're still needing to innovate and create stuff on your own?
Samantha Jade Durán 40:17
Yeah so while I am very appreciative of all the work that bigger fashion brands are doing to release adaptive lines. I would love to see more brands coming out with stylish options beyond you know, seated black trousers that are adaptive. I would love to see more maximalist options. I would love to see options that are less corporate and more about enhancing someone's personality and complementing their identities.
Anita Rao 40:55
Dr Barry talked earlier about kind of the ways that the mainstream fashion industry has included disabled folks in the past, which might be like at the very beginning and then at the very end, but not always incorporating feedback. What was your experience working with a brand like JCPenney? How did it feel to you?
Samantha Jade Durán 41:14
So basically, the partnership with JCPenney was that they developed this collection with the Olympian Jamie Perry, and then they contracted me to make videos promoting and spreading awareness about this new collection. I will say this collection was far more fashionable than I have seen a lot of brands doing in the adaptive fashion space. They sent me a silver sequined friend skirt. It was so beautiful with a side zipper with like the zipper had like an O ring, so it was easier to zip up and zip down. And it came with a coordinated it was like a cropped blazer that was sequenced and had cropped sleeves for wheelchair users. So it was extremely helpful. And I am very appreciative of JCPenney for coming out with more iconic pieces. I would say
Anita Rao 42:18
we talked earlier about this idea of a dynamic disability and how your needs and your experiences and your body can really vary even within the course of a day. Could you describe to me how you create clothing that can accommodate in real time, from something that you kind of put on in the morning to then when a need changes, you might need to tweak it based on a change you need to make. What's an example of a piece of clothing you've designed to fit that dynamic need?
Samantha Jade Durán 42:51
Yeah. So a perfect example I have is that I recently sewed an entire wardrobe for my trip to Barcelona in just 10 days, which was wild. I don't know how I did it. Yeah, I don't know how I did it, but I did it. It was a lot of work, but something I sewed was this beautiful, beautiful, like Monstera leaf print halter dress.
The bottom was, like the bottom of the maxi dress was pleated. It was so gorgeous. And then the halter, unlike the previous design that I talked about that had a magnetic button on the end, this one had like an O ring that is openable, and I created like a loop on the strap of the halter, so I'm able to take it on and take it off.
I have chronic migraines, which can happen at any time, honestly and unfortunately, as much as I love halter tops and I love how they look and how they make me feel, sometimes that pressure can make my migraines worse. So a perfect example of customizing what I'm wearing to my needs is with this specific halter dress, I am able to take off the strap, fold it inwards, and turn it into a skirt. And if I have a shirt with me, which I like to layer, that dress personally, if I have a shirt with me, especially if I'm wearing it underneath, I could just turn it into a beautiful two piece set that can help me with my chronic migraines and disability simultaneously.
Anita Rao 44:31
I love that, and you have done so much of that, creating clothing for yourself. You have created a couple of options for friends as well. But I'm curious with the fact that you are an influencer and you have a platform and people are watching and responding, do you have hopes for how others in the fashion landscape or adaptive clothing landscape might change their ways, or might be influenced? By what you're doing.
Samantha Jade Durán 45:02
Yeah, so through my videos and sewing journey, I am hopeful that big fashion will take notice and start to put out collections that are not only helpful and enhance a disabled person's independence, but that also helps them express their individuality, their personality, and make them look iconic and feel iconic.
Anita Rao 45:29
Do you want to scale up your own clothing, or do you see a different role for yourself in the inclusive fashion and design world moving forward?
Samantha Jade Durán 45:38
Yeah, so it's funny that you mentioned that, because I have definitely always dreamed of having my own fashion brand. I personally don't think it's feasible right now due to monetary reasons. I think scaling a fashion brand can be very, very expensive, especially because I would personally want it to be not only sustainable, considering that fashion is a major polluter and contributor to climate change, but I would also want it to be size inclusive.
I would want it to be exactly what that person needs. I want it to be customizable, and as someone who wasn't born into wealth like that. I foresee it happening, you know, maybe in the future, but as of right now, I think I'm going to continue making clothes for myself and for my friends.
Anita Rao 46:34
I'd love to end on this question about the word adaptive clothing, or the concept adaptive clothing, we have heard other folks share their relationship with the term throughout the show. How do you feel about the term adaptive and what it kind of means for disability inclusive design?
Samantha Jade Durán 46:54
I mean, I agree with Dr Ben. However, I do think it does contribute to this kind of form of segregation in a way, when I scroll on my feet, I see a lot of fashion influencers that are seemingly non disabled, at least based on what I've seen, and they struggle putting on clothes themselves.
I think adaptive, quote, unquote fashion, can benefit everyone, just like accessibility can benefit everyone per the curb cut effect. It's a very interesting theory that hypothesizes that accessibility benefits everyone. For example, a ramp was designed for wheelchair users, but they also help mothers with strollers. They help employees to bring in cargo into the store. They can help skateboarders, you know, craft their skill and, you know, I think the same applies to the fashion industry. I think what is coined as adaptive fashion can actually just benefit everyone. No one should struggle getting dressed.
Why should a woman have to ask her partner to zip up her dress for her when ideally she could be doing that independently?
Anita Rao 48:13
I love that. What a relatable comment and what a great place to land. Samantha Jade Duran, thank you so much.
Samantha Jade Durán 48:21
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
Anita Rao 48:30
Embodied is a production of North Carolina public radio W UNC, a listener supported station. If you want to lend your support to this podcast, consider a contribution at W unc.org Now this episode is produced by Audrey Smith and edited by Amanda Magnus. Kaia Findlay also produces for our show. Nina Scott is our intern and Jenni Lawson is our technical director. Quilla wrote our theme music.
If you have thoughts after listening to this episode, we would love to hear that you can leave us a voice message in our virtual mailbox. Speak pipe, find that link in our show notes. You can also send us an email. We're at embodied, at W unc.org, or DM us on Instagram or at embodied WC, until next time, I'm Anita Rao taking on the taboo with you.