By Ingrid Schmidt
Dec. 14, 2018 4 AM PT
Although the multibillion-dollar global fashion industry has made efforts to embrace a wider range of body types, it’s way behind the inclusivity curve when it comes to dressing the estimated more than 1 billion people worldwide living with disabilities, according to a World Health Organization and World Bank report. That number includes more than 60 million Americans who might be looking for adaptive fashion options to fulfill their own sartorial needs as well as greater visibility in ad campaigns, on fashion runways and in Hollywood.
Toronto fashion designer Izzy Camilleri came to know the adaptive fashion market well. She first made a splash when Meryl Streep wore her $10,000 silver fox-fur coat in the 2006 film “The Devil Wears Prada.” Form-fitting leather pieces were a signature of her now-defunct namesake brand. However, in 2009 Camilleri made a 180-degree sartorial turn with a pioneering new line of timeless basics for female wheelchair users. Inspiration came from the late Toronto Star journalist Barbara Turnbull, who was quadriplegic after being shot during a robbery. She came to Camilleri in search of a shearling cape.
“I’d never worked with someone with a disability, and it was eye-opening. I started [...]