Disabled entrepreneur opens Fashion Week
New Zealand Fashion Week was last night opened by a person with a physical disability for the first time.
Grace Stratton, an entrepreneur and accessibility advocate, spoke at the event’s official opening function at the Auckland Town Hall.
Stratton, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, said her high-profile role at Fashion Week was a great chance to show what diversity in the industry looked like in practice.
“People talk about diversity and inclusion a lot, and the discussion is great, but that discussion has to follow through and turn into action,” she told the Herald.
The 19-year-old founded All is for All in 2017, a world-first website which helps disabled people navigate the fashion world and buy products online. It was sparked by her frustration at ordering a pair of $200 pants which unexpectedly came with an extra tieso she needed help putting them on.
The company is also a modelling agency and advises labels on how to make their products and service more accessible. The local industry had been very responsive, she said.
Some labels already had initiatives in place. Ruby offered customised fit-outs for people with disabilities. And after consulting with All is for All, the label twentyseven names introduced alt-text on its website, which describes images to blind shoppers.
Stratton said the company’s work was not about pointing fingers, but about highlighting that up to 1 million New Zealanders had “access needs” and what that meant for them in practical terms.
That did not mean just designing a “special line” for disabled people.
“My belief system is that universal design means that you need to integrate into your original design accessibility for people with a disability.”
This year’s NZ Fashion Week has billed itself as the most diverse, including the first show dedicated to intellectually disabled people.
It was also championing diversity with commitments to transgender, ethnically diverse and “size diverse” models.