Before the show, our blind guests get invited to the designers studio to meet the designer and hear about the inspiration behind the collection as well as getting the opportunity to feel certain pieces from the collection.
On the actual day of the show, we gather everyone an hour before where we have a listening experience of the designer speaking about the fabric swatches to help them paint a much clearer picture of what to expect once they go into the show. We also create a booklet of fabric swatches. Once they’re seated in the show space, we give them headphones and they listen to fully described looks in real time as the models are walking out. It’s important to create this understanding and bring this conversation to designers so they can learn how to make their shows inclusive and accessible.
What positive impact have you seen from these inclusive moments?
There is this acute perception that blind or low vision people don’t care about how they look or fashion and that couldn’t be further away from the truth. We had a wonderful woman who works at the Royal National Institute for the Blind and was born blind and deaf who loves fashion and is so stylish. She came to Chet Lo’s show on the back of experiencing the accessibility that we provided. She ended up buying three or four pieces and that’s the power that we want to bring to fashion brands to understand that the purple pound is huge – it’s worth trillions globally. We want to help brands understand that the blind and visually impaired community want to be able to buy clothes or experience a show and feel like they’ve been considered and valued as a legitimate customer.
Charlotte Ellis
Charlotte Ellis
How can fashion and beauty brands implement more accessibility into their offerings?
The key thing is learning how important it is for their brand to become accessible and the impact that it has on the community they’re serving. In understanding and creating the necessary changes, we will see a ripple effect that we’ve been witnessing with the Hair & Care workshops. I also feel that they need to not be fearful. Obviously there are huge financial impacts for any brand that is making change, but once you’ve made it, it’s just a continuation of that.
We started off with Sinéad who is a Newgen designer and then more recently we did the Roksanda show too. This coming SS26 season we’ve also taken on Erdem – we’re seeing more luxury brands coming on board. It’s a sign that we’re going in the right direction. We know that making a fashion show accessible is not the fundamental change for visibly impaired people to feel completely considered, but we hope that the impact will start these internal conversations for brands to make long-lasting changes and come to us to consult and support them to implement those changes.
Beyond Vision is a milestone five years after founding Hair & Care. What are your hopes for the next five years?
I’m feeling really proud and grateful for the response, but I’m also a little like: ‘What’s next? How do we get ghd, Dyson and every hair brand to have accessible packaging and tools? How do we get even more people in the room?’ I’m proud, but I’m not content because there’s still so much to do.
I don’t think we can make changes unless we make people feel uncomfortable, because it’s only when people feel something that they then start to question and react. For all industries – fashion, beauty, hair – it’s all about money, but let’s actually make you feel something because you’re not considering the 2.2 billion blind and low vision people there are in the world. We got to hold the brands accountable and I think that’s by making them feel something.