Textile and Apparel Industries

A Case Study Exploring Adaptive Apparel Design Innovations as Key Competitive Resource for the Adaptive Apparel Market

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Abstract

People with disabilities (PWD) make up nearly 13% of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017) and contribute $21 billion of disposable income to the marketplace (Yin et al., 2018). Despite the potential for apparel to accommodate PWD's needs and the fact that PWD are a substantial portion of the U.S. population with significant spending power, PWD are often overlooked and ignored by the apparel industry (Hall, 2019; Hammett, 2019). However, the interest in PWD as a viable market has been slowly changing. The recent interest to begin serving PWD with adaptive apparel to address the market’s unique apparel needs seems to align with the 2016 partnership between Tommy Hilfiger^® and Mindy Scheier, founder of the non-profit Runway of Dreams (RoD), to launch the first-of-its-kind mainstream fashion-forward adaptive apparel line for children. Scheier, who became an adaptive apparel advocate after she could not find mainstream fashion-forward apparel for her son, who lived with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, researched the PWD market and used that research to develop adaptive design innovations. Therefore, this research study aimed to explore the development of the first-of-its-kind mainstream adaptive apparel line for children by collaborating with an adaptive apparel advocate and an apparel brand.

Keywords: Case Study, Adaptive Apparel, Competitive Resources, Design

How to Cite:

McBee-Black, K., (2022) “A Case Study Exploring Adaptive Apparel Design Innovations as Key Competitive Resource for the Adaptive Apparel Market”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 78(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.13288