“It has been so long since I wore a skirt”, says Sundari Sivasubbu with asmile, looking dashing in a long brown skirt and lime green blouse with a funky neckpiece. On Saturday last, Sundari had taken time off from her corporate job as communications manager with an IT firm in the city, to be on the ramp. The stage? National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Chennai’s annual fashion event. Sundari’s clothes were designed by enthusiastic NIFT students, who had coordinated with Ability Foundation to design accessible fashion wear for the physically challenged.
Ever since she became wheelchair-bound about five years ago, it had become impossible for Sundari to wear skirts, her favourite attire. If the skirt was a tight fit, it would cause sores on her skin; if it was loose, it got entangled in the wheels of her chair. So NIFT students designed a skirt with a snug fit, short at the back and longer in front, so it would not get entangled. Next on the cards for Sundari? Stylish and accessible footwear.
Also on the ramp was Malvika Iyer, PhD scholar and motivational speaker who has prosthetic hands. “Every time I think of a new dress for myself, I have to struggle against the multiple challenges of clothing that fits me, covers the socket of my prosthetic hand without the sleeves ballooning around, without rubbing on my skin sores either. Besides, it is difficult for me to do up zippers and buttons,” she explains. NIFT’s response? A formal shirt with buttons on the exterior and an elasticised placket beneath it, making it possible for Malvika to wriggle into the shirt without help from anyone. NIFT students also gave Malvika a white-and-blue sequined, tiered gown with ruffles, matched with elbow-length gloves to conceal her prosthetic hands. Malvika is now mulling over bags sans zippers but with compartments that close tight. “These students have now given me ideas on how to do this”, she says.
Similarly, Siddharth Jayakumar, a banker and frequent traveller with cerebral palsy, which makes it difficult for him to control arm movements, got NIFT students to design him a blue, formal shirt with regular buttons on the outside. Underneath, it has magnets sewn into the plackets, which allows the shirt to come together perfectly without the hassle of buttoning it. Meanwhile, the students designed for Vijay Irudayaraj, an entrepreneur in the hospitality business and paralysed on his left side, an embroidered white waistcoat with multiple pockets to accommodate his wallet, mobile phone and glasses.
“The wonderful thing about this project was that sensitisation to designing for challenged persons happened automatically. These students got to understand their needs from the point of view of both style and functionality”, says Janaki Pillai, director-operations, Ability Foundation. Ability’s Deepa Uddaykumar, who coordinated this project says, “The idea was to take the idea of inclusion to youth, who can communicate it to others.” Financial support for this out-of-the-box project came from Mayor Kamalakannan Educational Trust.
"Challenged persons too should be able to wear what they wish. There are ever so many bottlenecks to this currently. No trial rooms and not many shops with wheelchair access. And the clothes are never a good fit. I wish designers will now catch on to the fact that if they were to float a retail outlet and a flexible, special line of clothing that caters to us, they will gain access to a new and huge market,” says Sundari. So, all you fashion gurus out there.... got any ideas?
