Adaptive Fashion and the Double Take Fashion Show

Hello everyone!

Today, since it's officially June as I write this, and the warm weather is here, (my favorite season!) I wanted to talk about adaptive fashion and how this is becoming possible as we saw in the Double Take fashion show which I was honored to be a part of!

I was used to making do with kids clothing

So, I genuinely never really thought about fashion too much. I got used to wearing kids' clothes and shoes and a size small in the Women's department (although it definitely felt rare to even find things in that size that I knew would fit me.)

I can't remember exactly when I first saw this, but seeing the Runaway of Dreams fashion show online genuinely changed my life. Seeing people of all disabilities being able to rock popular current fashion, felt incredible and one of my SMA friends was in the show (I think) in 2021?

I was so inspired, however, I still felt stuck in where I was because I don't sew. Somehow in between then, my wonderful SMA friend along with a team from Genentech had reached out to me to discuss being in this fashion show. I was excited, but anxious because it was new, but I'm grateful I did it. I didn't know if it was legit or not, but I followed my heart and I'm so glad I did!

Planning an outfit for me

What I loved about the process was being involved in every step, from planning and seeing my outfit where I met with the Genentech team as well as the lovely Open Style Lab (OSL) team who made my outfit and the accessible changes to it, to discussing the show and everything that would happen during the show!

I got to pick every part of my outfit and at the end of the show, I realized how small the changes they made were, but how helpful they were too!

Adaptive clothing is possible

I came out of this experience learning that adaptive fashion is possible and will hopefully become more accessible in retail stores and less expensive soon!

I also just want to add that I learned lots of wonderful small tips and tricks from the designers! One is replacing zippers with velcro. While I'm not exactly sure how this works, it's extremely helpful! For example, one of my best SMA friends that was in the Runaway of Dreams fashion show that mentioned kindly gifted me her jeans and shirts that she wore in the show.

Even my jeans fit

Before I could never wear jeans because of my SMA belly which also makes my hips uneven and...anyway, my beautiful and unique body doesn't fit the normal able bodied jeans, which was honestly a small bit frustrating because there are so many lovely outfits you can make the feature jeans. When she gifted me these adapted jeans with the zippers replaced with velcro, I felt incredible disabled joy.

Fashion is my favorite and being able to be myself in fashion because of these small changes have been so game changing and I'm very grateful. It makes me feel every more like myself and I'm ecstatic to finally see this becoming possible.

Special thanks again to Genentech and Open Style Lab for this opportunity.