A non-profit aiming to adjust mainstream clothing for children with disabilities announced a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger Tuesday to bring adaptive clothing to a larger audience.
Runway of Dreams announced it had partnered with Tommy Hilfiger to launch “an adaptive version of their iconic brand's children's collection.”
The collection of jeans, shirts, dresses and shorts looks no different from any of the fashion brand's other children's clothing, although the items were specially designed with disabilities in mind.
The line included 35 items and was made available on Tommy Hilfiger's website Tuesday. Prices range from $18.50 for a t-shirt with magnets running a line down the back, to $42.50 for the most expensive pair of adaptive jeggings.
"We worked with Tommy's technical designers, worked with their customer service department to ensure that they understand different functions of the clothing and that they're using the correct language, and brought in differently abled models to make sure the clothing was functional," Runway of Dreams founder Mindy Scheier told BuzzFeed.
Scheier, a fashion designer, founded the organization in 2013 to integrate “wearable technology and design modifications into clothing, making it adaptive and wearable for all.” She was inspired by her son, Oliver, who was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, according to BuzzFeed.
“When Oliver started caring about his style, I had to make a decision: let him wear jeans that meant he couldn’t go to the bathroom on his own, or tell him he couldn’t dress like the other kids,” she told the website. “And saying no was not an option.”
She pitched her idea for an adaptive clothing line to Tommy Hilfiger in 2015, NJ.com reported.
“Our company has always embraced the diversity of our customers,” Tommy Hilfiger Americas CEO Gary Sheinbaum said in a statement to NJ.com. “Runway of Dreams helped further our understanding of the differently abled community's unique needs, and with this knowledge, we hope that we will be able to better serve them.”
