Adaptive Fashion
Today I chat with Alex Sargent Capps, Allie Schmidt, and Stella Barron about Adaptive Fashion. Alex has served on the Vanderbilt University Theatre faculty since 2001. She is currently the director of the Fiber Arts Build (FAB) Lab at Vanderbilt’s Wond’ry Center for InnovationAllie Schmidt is the owner of Disability Dame Consulting, where she works with businesses to help create products and marketing campaigns that are accessible to the disability community.
Edited Transcript:
Marsh Naidoo (00:23):
Hello and welcome to the Raising Kellan Podcast. My name is Marsh Naidoo and I blog@raisingkellan.org where we curate resources for parents raising children with disabilities. As always, remember, the content on this podcast is for your information only a, and if you seek advice for your specific situation to contact a trained professional. On today's episode, we are joined by Alex, Sargent Caps as well as Allie Schmidt. And my dear friend Stella Barrett will be joining us as well. Just as a friendly reminder, we have Day At The Lake, a live in-person event coming up on the 26th of August in Dyersburg, Tennessee. We would love for you to join us if you are able, and thank you to Dyersburg State Community College for being a legacy sponsor at this event. So guys, grab your cup of coffee, put your feet up, and get ready for some awesome conversation.
Marsh Naidoo (01:42):
Hello all and welcome to the Raising Podcast. I'm super excited to be here today with Allie Schmidt, Alex Sargent Capps, and Stella Barron. The conversation is going to be centered around adaptive fashion. I got a chance to meet both Alex and Allie this past month at MegaDisability Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. And just super excited to see the work that they are doing in this area. I'm gonna first start off Allie Schmidt who is known as the Disability Dame and her company, Disability Dame Consulting is basically where she works with businesses to help create products and marketing campaigns that are accessible to the disability community. Welcome, Allie.
Allie Schmidt (02:38):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Marsh Naidoo (02:40):
Allie. Would you mind just giving us a brief visual description before we go on?
Allie Schmidt (02:46):
Absolutely. I am a white woman with brown hair that's pulled up into a ponytail, and I am wearing a white and yellow stripped t-shirt today.
Marsh Naidoo (02:57):
Thanks, Allie. Alex Sargent Caps is the Director of the Fab Lab, and this stands for the Fiber Arts Build Lab at Vanderbilt's Wond'ry Center for Innovation. She teaches costume design, fashion industry, as well as adaptive and sustainable fashion. Welcome, Alex.
Alex Sargent Capps (03:23):
Thank you very much. So happy to be here.
Marsh Naidoo (03:27):
Would you mind just giving us just a brief visual description?
Alex Sargent Capps (03:31):
Sure. I am a white female. I have blue eyes and blonde hair, and I'm wearing reading glasses.
Marsh Naidoo (03:37):
My dear friend Stella Barron from Dybersburg, Tennessee is joining us today. Stella, welcome and so happy that you are able to join us.
Stella Barron (03:49):
Absolutely. Thank you for asking me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Marsh Naidoo (03:52):
Yes, ma'am. Just a brief visual description, if you don't mind.
Stella Barron (03:57):
For sure. I am a fair-skinned female. I have blue eyes and red hair, and today I'm wearing a white blouse.
Marsh Naidoo (04:04):
I'm Marsh Naidoo. I am a female with short black hair, brown skin, and wearing a pair of scrubs. Today I would love to delve more into Disability Dame. Allie, can you give us some brief background about yourself and the work that you do?
Allie Schmidt (04:24):
Sure. So about six years ago, I started developing symptoms of a motor neuron disease. It is ultimately led to the paralyzation of my arms. So both my arms and hands are paralyzed, but the rest of my body does not experience any weakness and so about, and it's from, we know it's a motor neuron disease, but we're not really sure on the specific type. I've seen many different doctors, but there's not really a clear consensus. And since there's no definitive test for it, I, I don't really know. And so about three to four years into the symptoms starting is when I started identifying as disabled, because whenever I would start to go out into the public, I would need to ask strangers for help when I was no longer able to do things completely independently for myself. Around that same time is when I became pregnant with my first son, who's now three and a half.
(05:16):
And at that time, I thought that it would be incredibly simple to just go online and Google products for people for specifically for moms with disabilities. And obviously, that was not the case at all. I was very shocked and I realized there are very few products for people with disabilities, much less even so when it comes to a parent trying to raise a child. And so I decided to create Disability Dame, which was a website that gave tips to disability to moms with dis disabilities and chronic illnesses. However, over time of working with this community, I started to realize that the real need in the market was working with businesses who wanted to create adaptive products in marketing campaigns, but they didn't have access to these individuals with disabilities who could really give them that honest feedback on what they were looking for.
(06:02):
So at the time, I was working in corporate marketing and I was needing a lot of accommodations. I was working in a part of town where I would've had to drive 20 minutes to work, but I was getting to the point where I was no longer able to drive, and we don't have public transit here in Nashville. And so I was gonna have to go remote anyways. And this was right before the pandemic and they were not willing to really accommodate me going remote. So I quit my job and I decided that I would use my marketing background to just kind of start Disability Dame and see where it would go from there. So I created the brand and then I worked with various organizations and just made a lot of contacts in the community and started working with businesses. And that's kind of how I ultimately ended up meeting Alex was I was working with as a fit model for an inclusive adaptive fashion company in Nashville. And I went to one of their talks and I met Alex and I realized that she had a real passion for solving problems for people with disabilities. And that's when we decided that we wanted to team up together to try to expand the the current fashion lab on campus.
Marsh Naidoo (07:07):
Alex, talking about the Wond'ry, can you perhaps tell us more about what the Wond'ry is?
Alex Sargent Capps (07:17):
Yes, the Wond'ry is Vanderbilt Center for Innovation. It has four areas of general focus, which are innovation and design, research making and design, entrepreneurship and social innovation. The Wond'ry is a really interesting place. It's not under the umbrella of any of Vanderbilt's five schools. It's kind of on its own. And our mission is to collaborate with, with every school, bring students in from the university, from across different programming and and areas of interest, and we also are here to serve the community both local and national and international. The, the one who's got a dynamic ambitious goal, which is to solve problems, collaborate, innovate, ideate, really we try to take on whatever problems come our way and have students as thought leaders and innovators and researchers in order to make the world a better place. It sounds idealistic, but it's just it is what it is. And I'm very happy to be a part of it. It's exciting and it's exci an exciting time. I run the Fiber Arts Build lab. We just really opened a year ago. And my two themes and umbrella goals are to serve the adaptive fashion movement and the sustainable fashion movement and to integrate students into that work in whatever ways they're interested in helping
Marsh Naidoo (08:55):
Alex as far as the adaptive fashion component. Right. What are some of the things and the ways that, for that listener out there that might even not be familiar like what is adaptive fashion? Can you perhaps give us an example of what adaptive fashion is and how a garment could perhaps be tailored for function as far as a person with Disability is concerned?
Alex Sargent Capps (09:25):
Sure. Adaptive fashion is taking clothing and adapting it to the needs of all individuals. And I look at it as both a practice of bespoke or customized adaptations and also universal adaptations. So some people who have hand dexterity issues might have a really hard time buttoning their shirt. So one adaptation that you can find, say in a company like Tommy Hilfiger he has a line of shirts that have magnets down the front. So that's an adaptation that can serve people who are aging, who have hand mobility issues, people with limb differences maybe who don't have two functional hands or people evenyoung people who might have a hard time with the dexterity. You need to button a shirt. So that's a pretty simple relatively simple adaptation. We had a Tom Makeathon this fall at the Wond'ry where we got had about 150 students involved in serving the needs of what we call need knowers, which are people with disabilities.
(10:30):
And we had a need-knower in our lab and about 15 students working on designing a special cape for this person. She has bilateral sclerosis or basically frozen arms and limited hand dexterity. And you know, she has a hard time doing something that for so many of us is something we just take for granted, which is putting a coat on. So she wanted us to design a special cape for her. And the students use the human-centered design process to interview this person. They found out what she does in her daily life and that adaptations that would be needed to make this cape functional for her. Those included having a zipper with a big ring pull on the front that she could sort of clutch one of her fingers into to help her with the zipper. And she actually has to get into her clothes from underneath them.
(11:21):
So we did magnets at the top and we made those far enough down so that she could get her hair with a ponytail into that cape from underneath. So the top of this Garmin has four big magnets, and then it has the zipper with the ring pulls. And then on the back it has two tabs that actually hook onto hooks in her closet and hold that cape up for her so she can go in underneath. It's also made with two layers of wool and cashmere to keep her really warm. She has lost the ability of her musculature in her arms to keep her warm. So that cape is an example of a really customized piece that serves someone with a very specific disability. So adaptive fashion, it really has kind of a broad range of definitions and solutions.
Stella Barron (12:15):
Well, I'm super intrigued with what has worked for Allie because my daughter it was as far as like self-care, she's completely dependent. So on her arms just one elbow, kind of her left elbow bends and the right-hand works. So as far as like putting on a blouse and when you talked about the coat, that's a huge struggle. And somebody who maybe has who has trouble breathing at times or who use ancillary muscles to breathe like a heavy any kinda like like I tried putting a pair of bib overalls on her to play in the snow just to kind of get outside. It was so cold, some through the winter, but she didn't like the straps because it pulled so much on her shoulders and she really, it restricted too much there. So it didn't really matter how much I loosened it, she couldn't get comfortable.
(13:02):
And then kind of just in general, getting the coat on and off, that was a really, really good point. And another thing that y'all kind of mentioned along the way is when you're talking about the backpacks and the walkers and the wheelchairs, you really on something there. I know one company did come out with an adaptive line a backpack company last year I believe, and I ordered one of the products and it was kind of like a little pouch and it had the hooks were kind of in, just in the right place that I could hook on the back of her walker. Cause I thought, oh, maybe she could put a book in there or maybe there's a couple of supplies that I might need from time to time. I'll stick those in there. But what I learned, and maybe at some point Allie can weigh in, is on those things when she's with her walker, it can't be too heavy.
(13:46):
It's like I couldn't put because it, it weighs down her walker. Or if something has a handle on it, like a, you know, just a handle, like a bag handle, if I put it on one side of her walker distribution of the weight, like it, it throws balance off. And so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't work. So it's just a lot of moving parts when y'all are talking about design and integration that kind of come into play. So keep doing what y'all are doing because y'all are definitely headed, I think, in the right direction. And this little think tank today is just another example of how things are kind of coming together.
Alex Sargent Capps (14:18):
Can I just mention with Stella's response, this issue of bespoke versus universal solutions? You know, it's like we want all the solutions to be able to serve a lot of people, but of course people in intellectual and physical disabilities have have their individual needs. And just because one person has down syndrome scoliosis or cerebral palsy, it doesn't mean probably that every solution is gonna work for those individuals. So I think this is one real trick and issue with this topic. You know, you wanna have solutions that are gonna work for lots of people, but you have these individualized physical needs and Allie and I have talked about that. We've interviewed people about that issue. I think that's really a tough problem to solve, but an interesting problem to solve. How can you maybe make some backpacks or garments that have built-in ability to be altered or customized?
(15:18):
Could be, you know the problem is it's, it's expensive. So how do you do it in a way that is gonna be affordable to the consumer or, you know, part of my Allie's and my vision is that the Wond'ry serves as a lab where people can come in, bring their family member or friend or community member with a disability and have their items customized or at least learn tricks so that they can customize them themselves. Our goal is to teach sewing and teach how to do some of these things so that people can apply them to their the items of their family members, loved ones or friends.
Stella Barron (15:57):
And it makes me feel good because that's definitely an area where I struggle. Every time I get my sewing machine out, I feel like I have to YouTube how to thread the thing and it's not gonna, and I just grew up in that generation of where that kind of wasn't passed along and it's something that I want for my other children who can pick that up. I want them to be able to do that. Even my one who has disabilities I've tried to teach her how to do a whips stitch and basically she almost kind of taught herself because it's just not something that I catch onto very quickly. But for this generation behind me and us I think it's super, it's just very imperative that that's something that's picked up and done better in years to come.
(16:43):
So what, what, when I'm thinking of this little lab or the lab that y'all are creating at Vanderbilt, where I could maybe bring in, here's my school garments that I have purchased or here are my, you know, the things that she needs for the winter or the summer because, you know, every season kind of brings its challenges then, you know, you could go through a few garments with me and then maybe the next season when those garments came around I could pick up and do those things or, you know, ha have somebody more locally help me. That's, that's fantastic. Y'all, y'all are keep thinking.
Alex Sargent Capps (17:14):
Well, I think that's a really good idea and I'll tell you what also gives me a lot of hope and just makes me feel confident about this movement in adaptive fashion. I'm seeing this revolution of interest in my college students in sewing. I've been at Vanderbilt for over 20 years. I've been running the costume shop. I've had students wanna come in before but not really pursue it. Well, if we cancel a workshop at the Wond'ry, because I don't know a tornado warning <laugh> comes in or, I have students begging me to, to reschedule. We don't cancel very many workshops, but just, there was one point where we canceled. There was a tornado, tornado warning and students were very disappointed. I've had students come and the enrollment is, is over-enrolled or they, they're hoping to come in for an empty spot and I say, we just can't accommodate more people.
(18:01):
And they, they almost beg me to be a part of the workshop and I don't wanna be begged for anything. But it has been a really interesting year in seeing the interest of 20 year olds in sewing and making things. And I think it's gotta be a need that they have in using all their technical devices. They wanna touch things, they wanna make things, they wanna build their creative confidence. And they also seem to have been watching YouTube videos and TikTok videos during C O V I D. So they will literally sit at the sewing machine with their YouTube phone, with their YouTube video going on their phone and teach them themselves how to do these things. But just what you're saying about teaching your children how to, you know, help themselves or help each other I think it's really possible. I really see a big interest in young people wanting to learn this in a way that past generations haven't seemed particularly interested in.
Marsh Naidoo (18:59):
What I've seen a lot as well guys, is that in their 20 year old generation, there is a lot of social awareness and there is a lot of willingness to help those that may not necessarily be able to do for themselves. And I just think that's a different kind of mindset or reframing in terms of social awareness and social justice and the awareness that they have. That's just a personal experience of what I'm, what I'm seeing. Stella?
Stella Barron (19:31):
I was just gonna piggyback on what Alex was saying about the YouTube videos and I, I even with myself, like say if I go into a boutique Target, a department store and I find a garment and I think, oh, I really like this, but you know, this would be great with a different, with a little bit a little sleeve or tight, you know, looser or tighter in the waist and whatnot. And if I had the skill I could just, you know, purchase the garment and easily make it into what would be super great for whatever I'm envisioning whether I wanna wear it to church or to a, a social event or to school or wherever. So I think that that's probably part of what you're seeing as well.
Marsh Naidoo (20:10):
Allie, I'm really curious as to your experience, your lived experience of parenting with disability as well. And I think that's just something that we don't see often shared as a lived experience.
Allie Schmidt (20:25):
So I definitely agree that it is not a topic that's discussed or hardly ever even seen. I feel like most times if I go out into public and I tell someone that if I'm with my son and I tell someone that I have a disability at the beginning when he was a baby, and obviously he requires so much physical dependence that when I would go out in public I would be really, really nervous to tell someone that had a disability. Cause I would literally be worried that they were gonna call Child Protective Services on me, thinking that I wasn't capable of taking care of my son. And I know that that is the case for a lot of different parents with disabilities. We are constantly worried that something like that could happen because people already have a stigma against us. But as he's gotten older, it has, the way that I look at parenting with a disability has completely changed.
(21:15):
When he was a baby, it was very difficult and it was really mentally taxing and I felt like you know, I wasn't, I honestly didn't feel like I was adequate enough as a mother just because there were certain things with him that I couldn't do because I don't have those products made or readily available to help me. I mean, literally every single thing that I've used to parent with him, I've had to create for myself or just find a different workaround. And so, but as he's gotten older, I really, what I specifically did was really lean into Montessori parenting because with the Montessori parenting technique, it really, the whole foundation of it is to instill independence in your C child at a very early age. And so I knew that that was something that would help us down, down the road.
(22:00):
And so I am incredibly happy to actually be parenting with a disability because the changes that I've seen in my son, I mean, they're just, they're amazing. At three months old, I'm pretty sure he was holding his own bottle at three months old, or maybe not that old, I can't even remember, maybe like five months. But there was this really significant moment that stands out in my head where when I read him a story every night for bedtime, he's the one that turns the pages and one of my friends brought her son over and he wanted me to read him a book. And when I handed him the book, he didn't know which way the book went and he didn't understand how to turn a page of a book. And it's just like those little things that my son has picked up at such a younger age.
(22:44):
He's also just incredibly caring and compassionate in a way that you just typically won't see with kids because he see his mom's struggle and he obviously, he very much loves me and he doesn't wanna see me struggle. And it, it is, it's creating this empathy in him that is something that another child might not learn for a long time. And so I think that he's also seeing diversity first-hand. He very much is like open to talking about disability. He recognizes it in people and we don't shy away from it at all. And I really like that part of it as well. He just understands that some people are different and we have different needs and it doesn't mean that someone isn't as capable, it just means that they just need to do something a different way. And so that's like a really cool thing to see in my son.
(23:34):
And so, yeah, I think that looking at parents from a disability, someone who's able-bodied might look at it from a certain perspective, but there's all of the, just like having acquired a disability, I thought of disability completely differently than after acquiring it. Now I look at it as something that can be very beautiful and have a lot of a lot of beautiful consequences that I didn't realize that I never would've been able to understand had I not gone through this. And so that's something that I really see in my son that is really cool.
Marsh Naidoo (24:04):
Allie and Alex, do y'all use the term universal design and adaptive design in terms of fashion? Do y'all use those interchangeably or does that, those two concepts have a different connotation for your adaptive fashion and universal fashion?
Allie Schmidt (24:26):
I think that they, I think that they have different definitions. I think that we probably honestly mistakenly use them interchangeably, at least I know that I do when referencing the lab. But I do think that they have different definitions. When I think of adaptive, I think of it as being somewhat more customized for the person with a disability, whereas you and adaptive, a lot of times it's gonna specifically be for a person with a disability, whereas universal, it's going to be used for all and it might, it's probably not gonna hit as many of the needs that someone with a disability would hit. It's just gonna kind of be a little bit more surface level, but it's gonna be something that's gonna have a bigger impact on the most amount of people.
Marsh Naidoo (25:05):
Guys, this is just, the final round where we can perhaps round up and give our closing remarks. Alex would you like to go ahead.
Alex Sargent Capps (25:18):
I'm just excited to be learning from Stella and Allie. As I'm hearing as a teacher, I want my students to be involved in this movement. I see them building empathy, just like Allie's talking about her son. Asher is building empathy for her and for others. I think we're looking at a movement that can serve many people. I think we can build community. I think we can teach young people to be more empathetic, to be creative problem solvers, to build their creative confidence. I just feel like we have something in front of us that has so much potential for good. And ultimately that idea of inclusivity of people being able to, you know, function equally or more equally in the world than they do right now. So thank you for this so much for this opportunity and I just think this is a really positive I feel very lucky to be involved in this positive initiative.
Marsh Naidoo (26:14):
Allie
Allie Schmidt (26:16):
I agree. I feel very lucky that I get to do the work that I do because, this is all I really ever wanted is to just have, spend time towards helping other people and giving back. And this is such a cool way that I get to do it. So I'm very lucky. I'm also incredibly excited. I would say specifically I'm really excited about the upcoming generation. I just think that as we've mentioned, their level of awareness on social impact initiatives is huge and it really they're such a dominant force that is going to help move this movement forward because they care and also because businesses will have to listen to them because they're the ones that are gonna be spending the money. So I think that's a really cool part of it. And then one last thing is going back to the universal versus adaptive terminology.
(27:08):
I recently worked with a big brand that will be coming out with their own line of personal care items and one of the best ways that I saw it done through them is that on their packaging they refer to it as inclusive design instead of, I don't think that they ever said adaptive fashion or adaptive, it wasn't a fashion company, but I don't think they ever said adaptive. They said inclusive design designed by someone with a lived experience. And I thought that was really cool because it is. They also referred to all the products as universally creative products. So it was like it's getting that point across and it's universal, it's for everybody. But like when a person with a disability looks at that package and sees design by lived experience, that person intrinsically understands what it means. Even if someone with an able bodied is person is not gonna understand that. I think, I think that they did one of the best jobs that I've seen of like actually marketing these products.
Marsh Naidoo (28:02):
In my closing remark, we kind of be taking off from where you ended, Allie when we talked about packaging and you know, companies giving more thought to the way the packaging is designed as well, especially when it comes to dexterity and how easy and difficult packages are to open. So just more thought about that product design. Stella,
Stella Barron (28:29):
I've always had an interesting fashion, I just didn't know and it was gonna lead quite this way, so I've thoroughly enjoyed these conversation Allie and Alex. Wow. I mean y'all are really opening some big doors I feel like in this community, just in the things that y'all have mentioned in this podcast. Oh my goodness, I am just thrilled to know that there seems like there are a lot of ways to kind of dig in and I feel like y'all are kind of paving the way. And so thank you for that.
Marsh Naidoo (28:56):
Just for folks to know how they could reach youAllie social media handles or website information.
Allie Schmidt (29:05):
Yeah, so you can reach me at my email is allie@disabilitydame.com. My website is www.disability dame.com and then I'm on social media, it's at Disability Dame.
Marsh Naidoo (29:17):
Alex, how can folks reach you?
Alex Sargent Capps (29:21):
If you look under Vanderbilt's Wond'ry Center for Innovation and go under maker spaces you'll find the Fiber Arts Build Lab and my information is on that website.
Marsh Naidoo (29:31):
Guys, thank each and every one of you for your time today. It is much appreciated and hope to see you all soon.
Alex Sargent Capps (29:40):
Thank you so much.
Marsh Naidoo (29:43):
As always, thank you for listening along on the podcast today. If you enjoyed that conversation between Alex, Allie, and Stella, please leave a rate and review on your podcast player. Just a quick reminder Day At The Lake. Our live in-person event is happening in Dyersburg, Tennessee on August 26th. If you would like to purchase tickets, go on to Eventbrite, the event is listed on that site. Another link as well would be our website, raising Kellan, spelled K E L L A N do org. As always, thank you again for listening a long. And remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Naidoo signing off.
