How adaptive clothing empowers people with disabilities | Mindy Scheier

82,595 views ・ 2018-02-02

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I love fashion.
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I actually go to bed every night thinking about what I'm going to wear
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the next day.
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Clothing transforms me,
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defines me,
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gives me confidence.
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You may not feel the same way about fashion,
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but I bet you have a favorite T-shirt or a pair of jeans that transforms you --
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makes you feel good,
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makes you feel confident,
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makes you feel like you.
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When I was younger,
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I wanted to be Betsey Johnson.
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I thought we were kindred, crazy-hair spirits together.
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I did go to fashion design,
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I worked in the industry for years
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and loved it.
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I married,
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I had three kids.
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But life can be heartbreakingly ironic.
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My middle child, Oliver, was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy,
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or MD.
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MD affects his muscle strength,
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his pulmonary system,
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distorts his body
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and makes everyday life more challenging than most.
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From the time he could walk,
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which wasn't until about two and a half,
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he had to wear leg braces for stability.
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Because he wasn't growing appropriately,
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he had to wear a feeding tube that was placed on his face.
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He endured stares, and so did I.
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But my husband Greg and I told him
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that no matter what,
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he was just like everybody else.
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But everyday tasks for Oliver
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that we all take for granted
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were incredibly challenging.
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That simple act of dressing yourself -- the very thing that I adore --
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was a nightmare for him.
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His form of MD does not affect his mind.
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His brain is an A-plus,
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which means he's acutely aware of his shortcomings.
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This became very evident when he started school,
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and that daily act of dressing yourself was a constant reminder
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of what he could and could not do.
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So our solution was for Oliver to wear sweatpants every day:
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to school,
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to parties,
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on vacations --
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his uniform.
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For special occasions, he would wear proper pants.
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But many times, because he couldn't manage the button and zipper,
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I would have to take him to the men's room,
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which was incredibly embarrassing for him
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and the other men that were in there.
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But them -- I said, "Oh, please. There's nothing I haven't seen before."
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(Laughter)
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For years we muddled through.
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But when Oliver was in third grade,
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I found out he was more like me than I ever imagined.
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Oliver, too, cared about fashion.
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He came home from school one day and said very definitively
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that he was going to wear jeans to school like everybody else gets to wear.
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Well, I certainly couldn't go to class with him
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and take him to the boys' room,
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but there was no way I was telling my eight-year-old
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that he couldn't wear what he wanted to wear.
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So that night,
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I MacGyvered the hell out of his jeans.
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I remembered when I was pregnant
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and unwilling to stop wearing my own favorite pants,
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even though I was busting out of them,
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that rubber-band trick.
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You moms remember what I'm talking about?
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The rubber band through the buttonhole,
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around the button and back?
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Instant stretch.
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So I removed the zipper
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so he could pull it up and down on his own.
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I cut up the side seam of the bottom of his pants
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to accommodate for his leg braces,
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applied Velcro --
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hold your ears, everybody: peel and stick, mind you --
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so that it would close around it.
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When I showed Oliver my arts and crafts project,
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he absolutely beamed.
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He went into school with his head held so high.
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Those jeans transformed him.
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He was able to get dressed on his own,
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he was able to go to the bathroom on his own;
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those jeans gave him confidence.
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I didn't realize it at the time,
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but this was my first foray into the world of adaptive clothing.
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Adaptive clothing is defined as clothing designed for people with disabilities,
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the elderly
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and anyone who struggles with dressing themselves.
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Adaptive clothing did exist,
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but it was missing that mainstream fashion component.
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It was very medicinal and very functional
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but not stylish.
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And that's a huge problem,
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because what you wear matters.
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Clothing can affect your mood,
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your health
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and your self-esteem.
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Now, being a fashion lover, I've known this forever,
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but scientists actually have a name for it.
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It's called "Enclothed Cognition,"
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the co-occurrence of two factors:
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the symbolic meaning of clothing
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and the physical experience of wearing the clothing,
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both of which have a direct correlation to how you feel about yourself.
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There's actually a professor in the UK by the name of Karen J. Pine.
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She wrote a book called "Mind What You Wear:
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The Psychology of Fashion."
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She states in her book
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that when you put clothes on,
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you adapt the characteristics of what you're wearing,
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whether you realize it or not.
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That's why you feel like a rock star
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when you put on those perfect-fitting jeans.
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That's why you feel invincible when you put on that power suit,
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and that's why you feel beautiful
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in that little black dress.
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But that's exactly why Oliver felt so isolated
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when he couldn't wear what he wanted to wear.
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He even said to me one time,
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"Mom, wearing sweatpants every day
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makes me feel like I'm dressing disabled."
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There are one billion people on our planet
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that experience some type of disability.
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One billion.
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If 10 percent of that billion experience clothing challenges,
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that's an enormous amount of people that may not be as confident,
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as successful
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or even as happy as they could be.
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The morning after Oliver left for school wearing those jeans,
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I realized that I could do something about that.
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And so I did.
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In 2013, I founded an organization called Runway of Dreams.
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The mission was to educate the fashion industry
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that modifications could be made to mainstream clothing
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for this community that has never been served.
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And it began with an entire year of research.
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I went to schools, I went to facilities, I went to hospitals.
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I literally chased down people on the street who were in wheelchairs
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or if they had walkers
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or even if they had a slight limp.
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(Laughter)
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I know I must have looked insane,
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but I knew that if I was really going to make a difference,
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I had to truly understand the clothing challenges
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of as many different people as I possibly could.
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I met a young man who was 18 who has cerebral palsy.
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He was going to Harvard University.
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He said to me, "Can you imagine?
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I got myself into Harvard,
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but my dream is to be able to wear jeans on campus,
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like the other freshmen will wear."
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I met a little girl named Gianna,
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who was missing her left forearm and her hand.
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Her mother told me
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she could not bear to see her daughter's difference magnified
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by a dangling sleeve,
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so she had every single long-sleeve shirt professionally tailored.
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Can you imagine the time and money she spent?
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I also had the great privilege of spending time with Eric LeGrand,
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former Rutgers football player who was paralyzed during a tackle in 2010.
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I had, at this point, seen some unfathomable things,
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but this, by far, was the most heart-stopping.
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You see, Eric is a really big guy,
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and it took two aides and a lifting machine
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to get him dressed.
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I sat and watched this process for over two hours.
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When I expressed my shock to Eric,
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he looked at me and said,
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"Mindy, this is every single day.
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What can I say?
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I like to look sharp."
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Research done.
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I knew that if I was going to make a change in the industry,
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I had to use my background
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and really figure out how to make these clothes modified.
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So I took the information I gathered over that past year,
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and I figured out that there were actually three categories
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that were affected across the board.
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The first were closures.
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Buttons, snaps, zippers, hook-and-eyes were a challenge for almost everybody.
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So I replaced them with a more manageable technology:
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magnets.
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Magnets made our Harvard freshman able to wear jeans on campus,
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because he could dress himself.
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Second: adjustability.
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Pant lengths, sleeve lengths, waistbands
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were a challenge for so many different-shaped bodies.
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So I added elastic,
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an internal hemming system.
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This way, Gianna could wear a shirt right off the rack
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and just adjust the one sleeve.
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Last: alternate ways to get the clothing on and off the body,
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outside the traditional way of over your head.
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So I designed a way to go in arms first.
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This, for somebody like Eric,
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could actually take five steps off his dressing process
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and give him back the gift of time.
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So I went out,
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I bought clothing right off the rack,
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I sat at my kitchen table, ripped them apart,
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did prototype after prototype, until I felt I had great modifications.
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And then I was ready for the big leagues:
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the fashion industry.
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Rather than designing my own collection,
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I knew if I was really going to make a difference,
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I had to go mainstream.
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I believed that I just needed to educate the industry
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of the enormity of this population
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and the fact that these were consumers
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that simply weren't being considered.
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And I am thrilled to say that the industry heard me.
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Runway of Dreams collaborated with the most amazing,
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forward-thinking brand on our planet --
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(Applause)
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who took my vision to market
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and made fashion history
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by launching the first mainstream adaptive collection.
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And the rest is yet to come.
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(Applause)
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So --
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(Applause)
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Fashion holds the key to a vital lifeline.
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Clothing can be transformative.
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Clothing equals confidence.
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So tomorrow,
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when you are starting your day
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and you're thinking about what you're going to wear,
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I hope you appreciate the process
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and think about how what you chose
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makes you feel.
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Today, Oliver is 13.
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He wears his adaptive khakis,
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his magnetic button-front shirt --
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feels like the coolest kid around.
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My boy has total swagger.
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(Laughter)
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As I mentioned,
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Oliver's disease is degenerative,
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which means his muscles are going to break down over time.
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This, by far, is the most devastating part for me.
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I have to sit on the sidelines
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and watch my boy deteriorate.
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And there's nothing I can do about it.
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So I am looking up from the things that I cannot control
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to the things that I can,
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because I have no option.
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And so, I am looking up.
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And I'm asking the fashion industry to look up.
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And now, I'm asking all of you
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to look up, too.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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