Webinar takeaways: What if Disabled people designed fashion systems?

Our panellists

The panel included three women from different backgrounds. With representation from the fields of education, research, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and design, we were able to review fashion systems from a variety of perspectives.

They were: 

• Roxy Murray: an internationally recognised advocate for disability rights, adaptive fashion, and radical inclusivity, living boldly with Multiple Sclerosis. A member of the BBC 100 Women list and the Shaw Trust’s Disability Power 100, she was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her work in fashion and disability. Drawing on her background as a stylist, she consults on art direction and adaptive fashion, and helps individuals with disabilities embrace stylish mobility aids and clothing as tools of self-empowerment
• Sinéad O’Dwyer: is an Irish designer and founder of a London-based womenswear brand Sinéad O’Dwyer. She offers intentionally designed luxury garments for women and gender non-conforming femmes of all shapes and sizes. Diverse bodies are central to the design process from research and development to the final product. Sinéad has been showing at London Fashion Week as a recipient of the British Fashion Council’s Newgen since 2022 and was a 2023 British Fashion Council Foundation Award Nominee. The brand won the 2024 Zalando Visionary Award and was a 2025 LVMH Award Semi-Finalist.
• Caity Briare: is a New York-based artist and designer. Having launched her brand, Ca8ty, in 2020, Caity approaches clothing as wearable art, infusing each piece with whimsy, humour, and narrative depth. Caity holds an MFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design and was part of the first cohort of the Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Programme. Caity has cultivated a digital presence as a fashion creator, sharing her upcycled garments and artistic process. She has participated in a number of fashion collaborations, including designing accessories for KidSuper’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection.

The webinar discussion was hosted by Laia Cargol Martinez, Product Design Consultant and Research Hub Lead at Tilting the Lens.

Watch the webinar recording

Webinar Transcript PDF (2MB)

Key takeaways from the webinar

During the conversation, we discussed various ways to drive change in the fashion system. These included involving Disabled experts in the solution-building process, approaching disability as a tool for creativity and innovation, and educating people early in their careers about inclusive design practices.

Our definition of accessibility is rooted in multi-modality. We always have a number of ways to engage with the webinar content. You can watch the conversation back via the video, you can read the transcript PDF, and below, you can find our key takeaways from the discussion.

These are:

1. Creating inclusive solutions from inception 
2. Co-designing through an intersectional perspective 
3. Disability as a driver for innovation 
4. Embedding accessibility beyond product design 
5. Education as a tool for system change  

1.  Creating inclusive solutions from inception

Solutions must consider the perspectives of Disabled people from the outset. This principle applies to any industry and any type of solution. This includes policies, products, consumer experience and communication campaigns. Too often, inclusivity and accessibility are considered at a later stage in the creation process. This usually results in poor outcomes or much more expensive processes.

During the webinar, Sinéad O’Dwyer shared her design process for creating garments that cater for a range of body types and functional needs. Through a discovery process involving interviews with women of all body types, she has been able to design pieces that celebrate diversity. Thanks to her inclusive sampling process, she is able to produce a range of sizes.

Sinéad: Because I do shows with many different body shapes, sizes, and abilities, I’m trying to work on three different sample sizes per season, so that means I’m thinking about three different bodies. I usually choose three different sizes, and I will try and also have different body shapes within that, so that when I get to the point of trying to produce the clothes, I’m not having to start from scratch. 

As an independent brand, trying to consider different sorts of bodies later, it just doesn’t really happen because the design has already been made without thinking about those bodies. I felt that good design would be where I was considering that within the design phase, because it’s also more inspiring. A lot of my work is around supporting a larger chest, and building that into the design. And so if you sort of only start with one small, very straight shape, perhaps that doesn’t need very much support; then later on, when you’re grading, you’re not going to totally redesign. So you end up with designs that don’t really work for different sizes or shapes.

This learning extends far beyond fashion or product design. To create useful, effective and successful inclusive solutions, the lived experience of Disabled people must be incorporated from the outset.

2.   Co-designing through an intersectional perspective

When designing inclusive and accessible solutions, the Disabled community is too often treated as a homogeneous group. Sometimes, the design process is more specific, differentiating between different types of disability. However, intentional representation of the community should consider not only various disabilities, but also the different identities present within it.

During the conversation, Roxy Murray made an important point about the need to include intersectional perspectives in any co-design panels.

Roxy: We can’t create with one unified group of Disabled people in mind. We need to look at building multiple ‘personas’ for the Disabled customer. Because each person’s needs are completely different. By doing so, we need to create co-design panels and advisory boards, and I found how useful that is when creating anything for any system, not even just fashion, when it comes to the Disabled community.

Accessibility should be embedded in any project, with the understanding that it is a continuous and evolving practice and is achieved through intentional participation of people with lived experience from intersectional communities. We understand intersectionality as an approach which takes into account, and designs for, people’s overlapping identities to understand the complexity of prejudices they experience.

3.   Disability as a driver for innovation

Meaningful and deliberate accessibility and inclusion builds dignity, equity, agency, innovation, and pride. 

Caity Briare’s work perfectly exemplifies using disability as a tool for innovation. During the conversation, she explained that her own lived experience had a significant influence on some of the most creative designs in her New York Fashion Week debut collection. Furthermore, she said that it was thanks to Disabled students’ presence at the Parsons Disabled Student Fashion Programme that some of their non-disabled peers started to consider accessibility and inclusivity in their collections. 

Caity: I would say my work greatly improved when I started to embrace my disability. Before, my disability was just very limiting with fashion. And then as I got older, I became a lot more confident and I was more able to express myself with my fashion. So, clothing is still limited, just like going out to stores, it’s hard to find something that fits me, but now I see it through a different lens of creativity, and how I look at these clothes in different artistic ways. I’m able to create a narrative. So, for example, with just some work that I’ve done, if a shirt is too long, I really love to embroider characters, so I’ll make a scene with the shirt, like, I scrunch up the fabric, so then, instead of it being too long, I alter it in a way that creates a story.

In my programme, Clare (Parsons peer) made an outfit for a person with Dwarfism, so it was really fun. I felt more included when she would ask me to try on the work as well, because before I didn’t have that opportunity. I know that if I wasn’t in the programme, that she probably wouldn’t have gone that route, so just having Disabled people in spaces can help to make that change.

When we include Disabled perspectives and when Disabled people are present in rooms where decisions are taken, there is a greater opportunity for innovation, inclusion, and creativity. 

4.  Embedding accessibility beyond product design 

Inclusive and accessible solutions should apply to more than just products. How can someone buy a new adaptive product if the company offering it does not provide an accessible retail experience? How can Disabled leaders contribute to the decision-making process if the spaces where those decisions are made are inaccessible? How can young Disabled people see themselves in positions of power if they have no references to look at?

Sinéad emphasised the importance of being intentional about the people she includes in her fashion shows and collections, as well as the importance of accessible buildings so that professional teams can include Disabled talent.

Sinéad: I think we have a responsibility as a society to change that, and I also find it really exciting and inspiring to design for all different people as well. There’s that other exciting creative part where I’m like, I can’t imagine if I was just designing for just one silhouette of body and one size and one ability, I think that would feel very unnatural to me. 

Also, so many studio buildings I’m in on, like, residencies, and office buildings are just totally inaccessible, and I encounter that all the time when I’m doing castings. Having a diverse team becomes very difficult because of buildings. 

Roxy also highlighted the importance of the accessibility of the retail experience, both digital and physical. 

Roxy: Look at end-to-end digital and physical accessibility for the community, so when they shop, to be able to use websites with ease, more visual descriptions, more actual video products, product videos. And then, obviously, physical accessibility, so actual spaces where the Disabled community and customers can go into and try on garments in real time.

System change can only happen when accessibility and inclusion are embedded at every stage of the industry’s operations. This involves designing physical spaces and creating workplace policies that support access and accommodation, ensuring that advertising represents a wider audience, and configuring user experiences to be accessible to all.

5.  Education as a tool for system change 

The need for disability and accessibility education is continuous and evolving. If inclusive design theories, human-centred design approaches, accessibility and disability inclusion are not part of the education curriculum, it is difficult to create change because “we don’t know what we don’t know”.

During the conversation, education was identified as the key starting point for creating systemic change.

Roxy: I feel like we should implement new fashion systems into the curriculum. We need to teach people to design with that in mind and to look at more diverse bodies. For example, the V&A had a great show around disability and fashion. Making that the norm, when people actually see those examples is when they are encouraged to create with inclusivity in mind. 

Caity shared her experience as a recent graduate.

Caity: Parsons does have some courses. They have an accessible fashion lecture, so that is taught to the BFA. They have students make clothes for bodies with different disabilities. I think we need more courses like that in the school system, so we can motivate students to, like, go out, learn how to do that. 

While formal academia drives change, education should extend far beyond traditional classrooms. Mindset change and disability awareness must also happen through cultural spaces or corporate initiatives. 

Research Hub Community

This webinar explored the question: What happens when Disabled people design systems?

As consultants, we go one step further: we don’t just ask the question, we make it happen. Thanks to our Research Hub Community, we have a network of Disabled experts who contribute to the creation of inclusive and accessible solutions. We place people with lived experience of disability at the heart of the projects we lead.

If you want to be part of a community that shapes the future of accessibility and inclusion, you can sign up by filling out the Research Hub form. 

References and resources

• Case study: Supporting ASOS to co-create a more accessible shopping experience
• Case study: Increasing representation and accessibility at The Met’s Costume Institute
• Case study: Creating a talent pipeline with Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Programme
• Case study: Co-designing adaptive fashion with the Disabled community