Fashion company entries for “sustainable development goals” awards likely include treatises on environmental impact or references to social responsibility.

This one is different.

When we talk with our clients at Tommy Hilfiger about sustainability, we’re talking about the human right to dress oneself.

In a world designed around and for people with full mobility, we take for granted our access to clothing. But for the one-in-five with a disability, whose bodies and needs aren’t taken into consideration when clothes are designed, a lack of clothing options can mean the difference between gainful employment and staying at home.

One billion people across the globe identify as having a disability. In industrialized countries, between 50% and 70% of people with disabilities (PWDs) of working age are unemployed.

Among those who have difficulty getting dressed independently, only 15% are able to work – not because they don’t want to, but because they are unable to.

We believe that clothing (or lack of access) should never get in the way of achieving one’s potential, whether working, attending school, or going on a date.

In partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, we co-created and launched the first adaptive fashion line designed for and with people with disabilities.

The social model of disability suggests that disability is a result of a ‘mismatch’ between people and their lived environments. For example, a sidewalk without ramps could be said to disable people who get around in wheelchairs.

A recent study at the University of Missouri concluded that a lack of appropriate clothing options is a significant ‘disabler’ of people with disabilities from being a part of the workforce.

People have been able to buy adaptive clothing before now, but the garments have been designed for function, not fashion, and intended for the elderly or infirm. These options are severely limiting (no winter coats for cold weather or suit jackets for job interviews) and serve to further ostracize and set people with disabilities apart from others.

Further, it suggests they’re uninterested in looking good or expressing themselves because they have difficulty dressing themselves. We all know how critical it is to feel self-sufficient in daily life. A lack of great clothing perpetuates the perception that people with disabilities are dependent on others and creates a divide between those who are able-bodied and those who are disabled.

If we were to fix this injustice, we’d need to go to the experts.

We had to challenge a perception that interest in clothes and fashion is superficial, especially for people who struggle with daily activities or suffer with significant health issues.

For an audience who had rarely (if ever) been consulted about fashion, our effort was crucial. Our interdisciplinary team co-created pants, shirts, dresses, and shorts with 1500 PWDs, adapting current designs with new innovations. The partnership yielded significantly more innovative solutions than if we had designed the clothes ourselves.

Inclusive design is a process, not a product. Truly changing how the fashion industry serves people with disabilities means going beyond the expected: product design or diverse representation in advertising.

We’d include people with disabilities everywhere – not just to design clothes, but to reimagine the customer experience, from AI to ecommerce, customer service, advertising and social media.

We think of People with Disabilities as the original design thinkers; having had to ‘hack’ their entire lives in a world that disables them, they challenge the conventions.

To create seven new clothing innovations (available in almost 1,500 garments), we established a proprietary online research platform, connecting our team (consisting of researchers, designers, and marketers) directly with 150 people with disabilities and their caregivers which has grown to over 1500 people globally.

Our research yielded the mantra: “Nothing about us, without us.”

If we were to have credibility in the space, we would need people with disabilities involved at every stage of the design process, continually contributing to and evaluating our efforts.

It’s why our creative brief focused on independence and self-expression as a human right – which can only be realized when PWDs are included in the conversation.

In our line of work, everyone claims to be the first at something.

Beyond clothing design, we were the first at four things:

One, the most inclusive advertising campaign in fashion history in Fall 2018.

Our blind director, James Rath built a crew with personal experience with disability. Our talent was cast by passion, not disability, through organizations like dance companies and surf therapists. Our script was filmed, then thrown out, in favor of our casts’ own words. Our content was accessible via closed caption and audio description, setting a new standard for social content.

Two, retrained customer service reps who could address specific audience needs.

Three, partnerships with Amazon and Macys.com as the first adaptive mass fashion brand.

Four, the first Alexa voice skill allowing people to easily sort and shop by their disability.

The Tommy Adaptive line proves that inclusivity is not philanthropy, it’s simply a better way to design. Our goal was not to win accolades, it was to sell clothes. And we did - both. The Adaptive collection has so far yielded $1M in revenues for Tommy Hilfiger. It grew the business; 44% of Adaptive customers also cross-shopped (buying non-adaptive product). One-in-three customer service calls are just to say, “Thank you.”

Additionally, that two-thirds of non-disabled consumers who learn about the line take action within three days - telling friends and/or buying Tommy product.

As Psychology Today writes, “The glue that holds relationships together is the mutual recognition of the desire to be seen, heard, listened to, and treated fairly. When we feel included, we are granted a sense of freedom and a life filled with possibility.”

We’re proud of this effort and believe the future of fashion is inclusive.