I posted on Facebook, and here, that I was looking for blog suggestions. The first one I got was “Fashion and Access to Fashion” and I think this is actually a very cool topic!
For those of you who read this and know me personally, you know that I am very girly. I love pink and purple, which is perhaps also suggested by the color of my blog. I never used to care what I wore, especially not through high school. Most of my clothes came from Reitmens or Suzy Sheer as a teen. I was more likely to be dressed the same as a teacher than I was to be dressed like a student. I found denim to be completely uncomfortable and I only wore dress pants as a result. My hair hair was short but nothing about it was particularly stylish, but it wasn’t horrible either. When I hit second year university something happened and I started to care – though I am not sure what sparked the shift. By 3rd year I was actively trying to dress well and I discovered Anthropologie, which is now definitely my favorite store.
Fashion is complicated by disability for sure and I think that was always one of my barriers to dressing “fashionably”. I find a lot of fabrics to be uncomfortable. I cannot tolerate anything that may be itchy and like I said, denim kind of sucks. My sensory issues have always, and still do, play a big role in how I dress. There was one year, when I was about 12, where I only wore fleece because it was the only thing I found to be comfortable. These days I have learned that there are lots of very comfortable cottons and natural fabrics that are soft, breathable, and that move well with the body. I avoid things like itchy wool in sweaters and even acrylic, going for natural fibers like alpaca, cotton, bamboo, etc. I highly recommend this for anyone with sensory processing issues or wheelchair users. Breathable fabrics enhance comfort significantly when you are seated all day!
Perhaps one of the biggest learning curves for me when it comes to dressing was when I started to use a wheelchair in my day to day life to get around. This may not seem like it would have a big impact on ones clothing choices but unless you use a chair, you have no idea just how big of an impact it has. For starters, I find pants very uncomfortable. The seams on the inside of the legs have given me welts before from the pressure of sitting on them all day. Now if I buy pants I get them a few sizes too big and I look ridiculous in them if I stand up, but I am comfortable when I am seated. That way they can’t dig into my tummy, the seams are not shoved into my skin, and I don’t feel like my pants are slowly suffocating my lady-bits. For me, the best way to really deal with this is to just not wear pants. I am not suggesting that wheelchair users who have similar issues just run around naked – though I must admit I am currently pantless in bed as I type this. I really hate pants…Instead of pants in the day to day I wear leggings with a skirt over top. I live in Canada and it is cold here in the winter. During the summer I go bare legged with a skirt, but for days like today at -20 degrees the leggings are nice added layer! Leggings are the perfect clothing item as far as I am concerned. I have at least 15 pairs and most are simple black. They are my staple clothing item and I wear them every day. They are soft, cotton, breathable, and flexible. They are thick enough to keep me warm and thin enough that my bum doesn’t sweat sitting in them all day.
Over the leggings goes a skirt. I have several denim skirts that are sort of like my go-to. Similar to how most girls wear jeans everyday. I also have some corduroy skirts, and others in varying levels of fancy. For me this is about making what is “in” comfortable. I go with fabrics that most people are wearing in pant form and get that in a skirt. Most of my skirts are around knee length, but some are shorter or longer. I like something that covers my legs a bit and keeps me warm. I especially love skirts that I can drape over my legs, so anything that flares out a bit. I find that to be very flattering in the chair. I also look for dresses with that sort of A-line cut too. On my top half I am normally in a sweater or a comfortable tshirt with a sweater over top. I try to get looser tops or ones that flare out a bit over the stomach. This covers up any tummy rolls you get from sitting and smoothes out my sillouette. It is also more comfortable since it drapes nicely and they don’t ride up when I lean forward and back to propel the manual chair. Lucky for me this style was “in” this past summer and I have a good collection of tshirts that are cut this way.
The best part of using a chair for me is the shoes. Growing up I despised shoes. Shoes don’t fit me well. They hurt my feet. What is comfortable is generally hideous. In the chair shoes are merely a decoration for me feet. I get away with $10 flats from Ardene all summer and during the winter I can wear cute boots with heals. I can wear stilettos without missing a beat and I never need to worry about my shoes getting scuffed or damaged. I had my footplate on my chair angled downward to accommodate for the heels too and this way my calves stay stretched and my feet don’t get sore. It is kind of ideal!
Now that you know how I dress, let’s talk about access to fashion. The plain fact is that clothes aren’t designed for any body. There is a basic shape and way of moving in mind and anything outside of that doesn’t work so well. Wheelchairs, scoliosis, the need for bracing, etc – it all impacts what we can wear. I am lucky that my personal style works with what exists but I do often wonder if that is where my personal style comes from it is purely based on comfort and accessibility. Would I wear pants more often if they were comfortable? What if they didn’t look silly as a seated person when they ride up at the ankles and expose my socks? Would I wear form fitting tops more often if I didn’t have to worry about them being pushed up as I propel? I am not sure.
I know there are some parents of kids with disabilities who read this blog and I hope some of what I described above can be helpful to you when getting clothes for your child. A lot of parents don’t dress us in particularly nice clothing and I know that is related to all of the barriers I mentioned above – comfort, fit, practicality, etc. There are ways to make it look fashionable though and to give your kids comfortable clothes that are easy to put on and take off. Kids are mean to each other and looking good/fitting in it with the crowd can help a lot. I know for me, when I feel pretty and when I started dressing more my age, I noticed shifts in how people interacted with me.
I also have a firm belief that assistive devices should look good. This was something that evolved for me over time. I used to have plain white plastic Ankle-Foot Orthotics, my hearing aids were beige, my crutches were plain metal, etc. The shift started with my hearing aids. I needed to replace them and I decided to go with purple. From there I got colored ear molds. Now I have clear earmolds again due to allergies and irritation but I have purple hearing aids with hot pink tubing and I attach different charms to the tubing that hang down and make it seem like I have an extra earring. Sometimes I put rhinestones on the hearing aids to make them stand out a bit. When I started to do this I noticed people commenting on them. It wasn’t “how deaf are you?” Or “what can you hear?” It was “Wow! That is so cool!” Other hearing aid users ask about the charms and the tubing. Suddenly it wasn’t about what I didn’t have, it was about how cool and pretty the aids were.
From there came the next AFO. It was purple. I just had a new set made and they are baby pink, which isn’t that awesome and I was hoping it would be brighter but I have plans to decorate them and make them more “me”. I also recently covered my wheelchair in purple duct tape and painted my caster forks pink with nail polish. This is another thing I am going to encourage for parents of disabled kids – LET THEM DECORATE! Use things that can be changed, like duct tape or electric tape. Find stickers, add rhinestones, do whatever you can to let your kids own their stuff.
The last thing I want to mention is hair. I have a pixie cut, and part of that is linked to disability. I had a chin length bob til this summer when I got sick with my first big GI Behcet’s flare. Shortly after I was discharged after a weeks stay in hospital I cut it off. Being sick, especially with a chronic illness like BD, means that fatigue is a big part of life. While I didn’t mind getting up every morning early enough to have 45 minutes to section out, blow dry, and straighten my hair I just didn’t have the energy today it. I wanted to be able to spend a minute drying it, throw in a bit of product, and go. I knew I could rock the pixie cut and so I said good by the the bob that I had worked so hard to grow out for two years and resumed life with short hair. I am at a point now where I want to start to grow it out again. I probably will start that process with the next hair cut and my hope is that by the time it is long enough to need that hour of styling everyday I will be in a remission and able keep up with it.
Looking good and feeling pretty can have a big impact on health in and of themselves. If I feel hot, and if I feel like I am beautiful I am happier and more confident. Learning how to own my disabilities and embrace them has been a big things for me and now that I have figured out how to incorporate my own personal style into how I dress and how I present my assistive devices to the world I am a happier person. My chair is a part of me and accepting that, embracing it, and making it look like it is a part of me helps a lot. I encourage others to do the same when you can. If it is there anyway you might as well make it look good – just like glasses!
Post comments or questions if you have any! Continue to throw blog suggestions my way!
Feisty, Deaf and Disabled 