What's the first thing you think of, when you hear the phrase “Sustainability in Inclusive Fashion”?
If you’re like me, not much comes to mind. As someone who doesn’t really read fashion magazines, watch the runway shows or stay up to date on the latest trends, I had no idea what to expect, when my friend Fitrah wanted us to attend a panel discussion together, named exactly that. If I was being honest, I really didn't think that I’d be able to engage meaningfully with the content of the discussion.
The discussion turned out to be one of the most interesting and thought-provoking conversations I’d ever listened to.
What I soon realised was that while my brain registered the word ‘fashion’ as part of the title, it had completely skipped over the ‘inclusive’ part. The event wasn’t a workshop teaching participants how to sew a scalloped hem, design an empire-waisted top, or stitch a lapel. Rather, it was about three women sharing their experiences in an industry that was rigged against them, while still finding ways to embody the true essence of fashion: to create timeless pieces that seek to flatter everyone, regardless of body shape, size, or physical abilities. Much to my delight, I’d realised that two of the three panellists had founded their own social enterprises, directly targeting the issue of the lack of inclusivity in the clothing industry as a whole.
Claudia Poh at her studio, photo credits to Jonathan Tan and Werable
By far, the speaker who’d really caught my attention was Claudia Poh, a young entrepreneur who created garments that empowered persons with disabilities. I absolutely love reading about social enterprises and their avante-garde approaches to solving pervasive societal issues, and Werable, Claudia’s innovative clothing enterprise, is no different. From the get-go, Claudia was practically bubbling with energy onstage, sharing her experiences with the candour and contagious enthusiasm of someone who truly loved what she did. This, I thought to myself, is what I want to be like when I’m older.
Despite receiving a traditional education in fashion from the renowned Parsons School of Design in New York City, Claudia’s first experience designing and creating clothing for a consumer was anything but by-the-book. Her journey in adaptive fashion began when a close friend was diagnosed with ALS. But she didn’t stop there. After her success innovating and ideating hands-free dressing systems, she then expanded to creating garments that could be worn single-handedly by stroke survivors, and founded Werable, an adaptive fashion brand that focused on higher-end pieces. Now, Claudia is an award-winning designer with a deep focus on social innovation.
Werable's Matisse in Ivory, with a removable strap,
high adjustability and magnetic closures
Her first design? A coat that uses air-pockets to “rise onto the wearer”, to eliminate the faff and fuss of trying to dress with limited mobility. As soon as Claudia mentioned this, I thought it involved expensive smart materials or cutting-edge gravity-defying technology, but she soon shot down this preconception with the mention that the design was a hack using a sheet of polyvinyl, an iron and a roll of parchment paper, using heat to seal little inflatable “pockets”. Surely, the air pump she used would be extremely advanced, then? Maybe one that could be motion-activated, or even automatic? Wrong again. Claudia laughs, recalling how she’d got the pump she’d needed by buying an air-mattress on Amazon, carefully cutting out the pump mechanism, and then discarding the rest of the mattress.
I was baffled. How would this work in real life? Was it even possible to have inflatable clothing, without looking strangely misshapen? All that came to mind when Claudia first mentioned the word ‘inflatable’ was the Michelin Man. How could this possibly be related to high fashion?
Claudia Poh creating a prototype, photo credits to Jonathan Tan and Werable
Next to me, Fitrah was frantically scribbling notes down in her little notebook, already gaining heaps of inspiration from Claudia’s innovations. What other strange new mechanisms could help make the process of dressing a little bit smoother, a little bit easier? Who knows, maybe this type of innovative design could be the next big thing in fashion.
That is exactly what Claudia hopes.
In her words, ‘clothes are an extension of all the things we want to do in our lives’, and Werable aims to do just that, by creating clothing that empower individuals to have choice, to cater to those in demographics that fashion mass markets have traditionally tended to neglect. Whether it’s through their bolero, which doubles as an arm sling, or their Matisse dress, which utilises a magnetic clasp rather than a zipper or button mechanism, Werable is making fashion a little more accessible, one garment at a time.
Werable's Transformable Bolero, which doubles
as a multi-functional arm sling with adjustable height
I was very lucky to have the opportunity to speak to Claudia personally, when she graciously agreed to be interviewed for this blog. One of the examples she mentioned when I asked her about what she meant by choice, was the example of attending a wedding, or attending a formal event. When we think about adaptive fashion, we think of everyday clothes. We think of functional clothing, of clothing that gets the job done, of clothing that fulfils the minimum requirement: to physically safeguard the body. But what if a parent with disabilities wants to attend their son or daughter’s wedding? What if they need a gown or a tuxedo that caters to their individual needs or mobility? So often, these markets aren’t catered to, because they’re smaller, and in the eyes of larger fashion corporations, simply aren’t as profitable. Persons with disabilities experience their disabilities differently, and hence it’s virtually impossible to implement a cookie cutter solution, to have one ‘adaptive dress’ or ‘adaptive suit’ that works for the masses. Hence, features such as adjustability, or offering alteration services, are paramount to an adaptive fashion enterprise.
Well, what else goes on in the day to day operations of an inclusive fashion enterprise? I was extremely curious to learn more, and had many burning questions, which Claudia did her best to answer! Included below are some of Claudia’s answers, slightly edited for clarity and cohesion.
What’s the biggest ‘driving force’ that motivates you to continue to expand and work on Werable, even when faced with adversity?
In my life, I have received a lot of help from others, much of which I didn't always believe I deserved. I often think about how fortunate I am to be able to do what I do, and want to be able to pay it back and pay it forward. At the very least, I feel like I owe (this) to a lot of people. I was doing (the) IB (curriculum) actually, and wasn't faring well at school. During this period, I wasn't performing well academically, although I excelled at visual arts. A few people really took a chance on me, which enabled me to pursue my strengths, instead of continuously being defined by things I wasn't so good at.
I think, broadly speaking, it’s always been about freedom of choice. This is what design provides. It's about being able to choose what colour, what type of clothing you like. It's very different to Maths and Science, where you're constantly being told what's right and what's wrong. For example, if you like the colour red, your parents can't say "no, don't, you can't like the colour red, it's wrong,". This was my escape. Over time, I met more people, made more friends, and this was when I had a big realisation. Sometimes, they wanted to wear a certain dress, or wear a certain colour, but it wasn't even a choice! They couldn't. They couldn't in the sense where there was no existing option, accesability-wise. That frustrated me to no end. It's what propelled me to pull through, even when times got difficult.
I took Design and Technology in school, so I know a bit about the iterative design cycle. Could you walk me through your design process for a new garment, from ideation to being worn by the end consumer? Are there any differences from how this process would look say, if you weren’t focused on adaptive fashion?
We always start with an interview. When I interview a client, I'll always end the conversation by distilling our design principles with them, and getting them to rank these principles in level of importance. Design principles, loosely speaking, are features associated with the final product, and we have to figure out which is the most important (to the client). We'll say "Tell us which feature is most important to you, and which is the least important to you". None of them can be ranked the same, because there's always a trade-off. This is the fundamental mindset we have when we sit down with a client.
When I wasn’t designing for persons with disabilities, I didn’t conduct interviews, and it was more about designing for the masses as compared to one specific person. I operated more like an artist, similar to traditional fashion design students. You’re given a theme or a topic from your school, you figure out what is interesting about that theme, you make a moodboard, do some research. You never give a thought to who'll end up wearing it. Designing for persons with disabilities is very different, in the sense where you'll have to confront who the end user is going to be and find out what’s important to them, and then figure out how to achieve the end goal.
We (Werable) had been designing an accessible backpack for a Paralympian swimmer. We sat down, and had a very loose conversation. At the end of the conversation, I then said to him “From this conversation, these are the three things that kept coming up repeatedly. I need your help to rank which one is most important to you.”
In my notes, I wrote gait (manner of walking), grace and ease of access (of taking out/putting in objects).
I asked him to rank those three for us. I've repeated this process with other clients, and over time, I found that when they (clients) first have this call with you, they often feel one way about what they prefer, such as prioritising gait. Then when you go to the first prototype, sometimes they might come back to you and be like, “Actually, access to items is number one. I might not use the bag as much if I had to sit down to be able to open it.”
It’s more of a science experiment than anything, and you constantly require more information to verify if your assumptions and your hypothesis are correct. In the current line of work that we are in, you start off with a clear goal, and you want to be able to help achieve this goal for the specific person. We try not to claim that (Werable's garments) are for every person out there, every stroke survivor, every person with disabilities etc. We use these terms as loosely as possible because there is always variation about what everyone wants and how everyone feels. We can’t apply things across the board like this, or generalise the needs of a demographic, so we try not to do so as much as possible.
Is there a specific incidenent or memory that stuck with you, from your experience interacting directly with customers, or working at Werable?
There was this incident that left an impact on me. I don’t know if resonate is the word I would use, but it was a very emotional time for me. I developed very close relationships with the people that I worked with. One day, one of my clients called me and said that her sister had another stroke and that she was fully bedridden. She then asked me to make a white dress for her, so that she would have something nice to wear before she passed on. Obviously I was really sad, confused, and couldn’t find it in me to say no. I dropped everything I was working on to focus on the dress. There was a lot of anxiety around it, because I didn’t know if I could finish on time. I was rushing through it, I wasn’t sleeping because I kept thinking “What if in the middle of the night, while I’m sleeping, she passes on?”
My brother gave me a piece of advice. He said, “You don’t want to be known for designing clothing for people passing on, especially when Werable is supposed to be a symbol of empowerment. You don’t want to create something, and then for there to be a stigma around it, as if your clothes are meant for people who aren’t going to make it, as opposed to people who are. People who are living their lives fervently, with passion.” So, I never really publically shared this, obecause I don’t want people to have the wrong idea of what we do. I just don’t want people to misunderstand. What we’re supposed to do is enable and empower. If you want to go to work, if you want to go to your daughter’s wedding, and you can’t because there’s no appropriate attire, Werable is meant to provide more options to open up these experiences to you. That’s what we want to be remembered for.
This is a great question, and it calls for an honest answer. There have been many great moments, such as whenever I see clients being able to dress themselves, without assistance. My favorite part of the entire experience is when the prototype finally works, and the client can put it on without your intervention. It’s the best feeling ever! And nothing has quite beaten the high that we get when we see the physical manifestation of our efforts. But in terms of what has changed my perspective and my life, being asked to create the white dress has been the most emotional thing that I’ve experienced since starting Werable.
What’s the biggest misconception that people have about the work you do? When you say “Oh, I do adaptive fashion”, what’s the thing people tend to get wrong or misunderstand?
It depends on the person that I’m talking to. I think the most common one is that they assume (Werable’s designs) are only for persons with disabilities. Over time, I realised that this is because we're having a conversation without the visuals. Usually, when they see our garments, it erases the doubt that Werable’s designs are only meant for a certain demographic. When people see photos or videos of our clothing, they’ll start to say something like, “Oh, I would wear that!”. Often, the reason why this misconception occurs is because this conversation starts with a friendly introduction. I’ll be like “Hi, I’m Claudia”, and people will invariably ask me what I do. When I say what I do, the assumption is that “Wow, you only do clothes for people with disabilities,” or “It must be a very small market, how do you survive?”. It's something that I’ve had to clear up multiple times.
(followup question: do you see this becoming less of an issue in the future when adaptive fashion starts to gain more visibility, or is this a conversation you’ll most likely have again?
I think it’s not a matter of whether people have heard of adaptive fashion, but whether or not people have heard of our brand, Werable. We wouldn’t have to explain that it’s for everyone, if (the audience) already familiar with our designs. People who have heard of adaptive fashion are influenced by what’s in the market, which is often highly specific to persons with disabilities. It’s already so hard (for persons with disabilities) to find clothes, so we’re not going to make it harder by renaming or relabelling everything (that we design), and choosing not to call ourselves an adaptive fashion brand.
Whether it’s for aspiring social entrepreneurs, or just life advice in general, what’s something you wished you knew or wish you were told when you first started out?
There are two things that I found challenging when we first started Werable. The first was a lack of focus. It stopped me from channelling my resources in an efficient way, especially when I kept saying 'yes' to opportunities that I later wasn't able to deliver on. Another major thing that I learned after leaving the country at a young age, was that not everyone would have the same values as you. Even when people smile at you, laugh with you, it doesn't necessarily mean that they share the same values. You want to surround yourself with people that you want to be like, or people who harbour similar core beliefs. My perspective on this might change over time, but I’ve realised that people who flip-flop on their values are difficult to work with, because it’s hard to understand their motivations, and identify a common ground between the two of you.
You can’t do it alone. The moment you try to start on these projects alone, too afraid to ask for help, it stops you from accomplishing all the amazing things that you could do. I’ve only learned in the last two years how to ask for help. When Werable was first founded, we were doing the Good Design Research Initiative by Design Singapore Council. They gave me roughly thirty grand, and I kept insisting on making everything myself. Six months in, product development was slower because I decided to sew everything myself. When we started working with seamstresses and hiring freelancers, things started to move much faster. The money that I had, produced a much greater impact than it did when I was trying to juggle everything alone.
There are many reasons why people are afraid to ask for help. Quite frankly, it was very surprising to me when I found that people were very nice, and very kind. It's why I want to pay it back.
It’s scary to ask for help. It’s not always as easy as “Hey, can you help me with my homework?” or something along those lines. My boss, who is also a philanthropist, said to me that when people ask for help, you shouldn't go around telling them that you're doing them a favour. Don’t try to be photographed doing good work, don't go around reminding people that you’ve helped them. Why would they want to be seen as someone who needs help? This line has always stuck with me, as he (my boss) had extended me the same courtesy. He had never once reminded me of any kindness or generosity that he had extended to me, and I’ve always thought that that was a very inspiring way to live. I have a lot of respect for him, and my goal is to emulate that in my own life.
Once again, thank you so much for your time. This was extremely insightful, and I’m sure many of my peers would have a lot to take away from this conversation, much like I have! One last question, how can we as individuals support brands such as Werable, even if we don’t necessarily require adaptive clothing?
There’s multiple ways, but the most immediate way to help the business is by buying the product. People can raise awareness on social media, or teach others how to make accessible clothes, but the best way is actually to purchase and use the products that we worked so hard to design. It opens up a whole world of feedback. If people don’t buy (our products) and don’t use them, we can't get customer feedback, and can't figure out how to improve. Our products can only be as good as the feedback that we receive. As our designs are for everyone, we often receive a large influx of feedback from both persons with and without disabilities. Then, it's up to us to prioritise certain pieces of feedback, and decide which changes to our products would be the most logical for Werable. If we care about making (clothing) accessible for persons with disabilities, then with our platform and our resources, that will be our first priority.
So going back to your question, if you want to help social enterprises, the end goal should always be to give feedback. And that feedback should not be based on an assumption, it should come from a place of genuine understanding, and genuine understanding comes from using the products.
Speaking to Claudia was truly an experience that made me reconsider my views on the way able-bodied persons experience life, as well as providing a deeper insight into how best we as a community can support persons with disabilities. Through my experience over the years talking to numerous social entrepreneurs from different sectors, it’s true that having the zest and passion for what they do is an innate part of the job’s requirements, but few are as honest and candid as Claudia was about the struggles of starting a social enterprise from scratch.
Photo credits to Claudia Poh and Werable
If you’re interested in learning more about Werable and what they do, Claudia can be at @claudiappoh and @werable.co on Instagram
And if you’d like to see more writing or fashion content, follow @writtenbynicola and @directedbyfitrah on Instagram :)