Christina Stephens: Meet adaptive fashion’s disruptive duo

In just two several years, the adaptive trend model Christina Stephens has developed retail earnings fourfold by tapping an underserved current market for fashionable dresses that meet up with the exclusive requires of individuals with disabilities.

Jessie Sadler established Christina Stephens in 2020 following her mom complained that she could not discover great fashionable clothes just after encountering a drop.

“We ended up searching on James Road in Fortitude Valley when my mum tripped and smashed equally of her elbows,” Sadler points out. “She wasn’t ready to costume and when we tried using to appear for garments that didn’t resemble a medical center robe, the possibilities were being underwhelming. I didn’t realise adaptive garments was such a non-existent category.”

Following investigating the fashion offered for design-aware men and women residing with quick- or prolonged-term actual physical troubles, she realised there was a social and organization chance. “Twenty for every cent of the inhabitants lives with a disability,” Sadler says. “Yet, the proportion of beautiful, excellent, and on-pattern style out there was vastly lacking.”

Christina Stephens – Sadler named the brand immediately after her parents’ to start with names – has a mission of supplying individuals with disabilities and changing bodies much more self-confidence and additional alternative, and boosting the dialogue close to normalising the concept that every physique is diverse.

“This is the following leap ahead for our label in disrupting the fashion marketplace.”

Sadler has been overcome by the help from her ever-rising neighborhood. “In just two brief years, we have quadrupled our retail revenue, grown our wholesale and drop-transport income by 300 for every cent, and been snapped up by important shops, like The Iconic,” she enthuses. “And we showcased at the initial-ever Afterpay Australian Vogue Week (AAFW) Adaptive Clothes Collective runway in early May perhaps.”

Renowned artist and incapacity advocate Carol Taylor just lately joined Christina Stephens, right after she and Sadler expended the previous few decades cheering each individual other’s successes.

“We made the determination to group up, with the collective mission to improve what is deemed mainstream manner,” Sadler suggests. “Christina Stephens as a label has generally been about collaboration about competition. If we want to see real development in mainstream fashion, it starts off by doing work as one particular. And this collaboration has appear about both despite and for the reason that of our really distinctive ways to design.

“With Carol as the world’s very first quadriplegic manner designer, and co-operator and designer of Christina Stephens, this is the subsequent leap ahead for our label in disrupting the trend field, making universal styles for folks with disabilities and modifying bodies,” Sadler explains. “Carol is not only bringing her lived encounter, but also a lot more of her assertive, vibrant, and glamourous fashion to the model, [which] our consumers have been asking for.”

Sadler says their new assortment, Unwrapped, is a mix of her individual and Taylor’s special types that provides an elevated, vibrant and glamorous punch to the model. The collection was influenced by a Zoom contact Carol was on with a group of colleagues from the US, together with a quadriplegic gentleman who was about to get married. He was excited but bemoaned the reality that he’d “never know what it is like to unwrap my bride”. This prompted the to start with-ever adaptive lingerie piece that is section of the Unwrapped selection. 

Christina Stephens operates on the ethos that good adaptive style doesn’t conclusion with magnetic buttons and zips. “For example, when coming up with for an individual in a wheelchair, it is not just about creating for another person in a seated placement, there is so significantly additional to be thought of,” Sadler explains. “A seam put in the improper situation can induce a stress damage and all of a unexpected you are out of motion for months. Way too much fabric in the improper spot can bring about excruciating nerve suffering, putting the kibosh on any plans you experienced for the day.”

Sadler wishes everyone to fully grasp the will need for this new classification of apparel. “It can be universal, but it must be adaptive,” she says. “And, even additional so, it ought to be designed by these with lived practical experience of a incapacity. This is a massive market… retailers like Myer, David Jones and FarFetch need to have to realise this is a solution that’s preferred. Build it and they will appear,” Sadler avers.

This report to start with appeared in issue 37 of the Inside of Compact Business enterprise quarterly journal.