Amy Zayed at TGDN Network takes us inside Susan Fang’s accessible London fashion show, exploring how audio description, touch tours and inclusive design are helping blind people experience fashion differently.
The music is soulful, sometimes slightly throbbing, stirring my excitement as I sit on the Barbican’s terrace, a vast complex of towering buildings in central London. Its terraces and outdoor spaces, with gardens and walking bridges, contrast with the building’s hard concrete structure. The models appear on the catwalk in outfits created by designer Susan Fang. I am wearing headphones, and whenever a model passes the audience, the audio description tells me about the designs they are wearing, dominated by flowers, beads, and colorful patterns. Suddenly, I smell a perfume that somehow fits the flowery elements. I later found out the perfume was part of the show, as the models wore tiny bags of the scent created by British perfume brand Penhaligon’s on their clothes. Although the scent wasn’t created for the show, or even the collection, it fits the audio description and the music perfectly.
As I watch, I can hear my 15-year-old self screaming with excitement! How much did I long to be at a fashion show where I actually felt welcome as a blind person?
My thoughts get echoed by quite a few of the other blind guests I encounter. It was Seren’s first fashion show, too. Although she isn’t much into fashion, she loved the idea of an accessible fashion show, especially because, for the first time, she didn’t feel left out at shows. This is all thanks to British stylist Anna Cofone, who founded the “Hair and Care Project” and “Making Fashion Accessible.”
Making Fashion Accessible
What started as simple workshops to teach blind and partially sighted people to style their hair grew when stylist Anna Cofone began approaching designers to make their fashion shows accessible. Now in its seventh year, Cofone and her team have organized several accessible shows with audio descriptions, swatch books and touch tours. Cofone also found collaborators in the hair brand “Authentic Beauty Concept”, whom she has a long standing relationship with. They now are not only sponsors of Anna’s workshops and the “Making Fashion Accessible” shows, but also learned from Cofone and now have Braille as part of their branding. For Global Marketing Manager Annabelle Schürmeier it is the only way forward. “What fascinates us most is the idea that creativity and self-expression should be accessible to everyone. ‘Making Fashion Accessible’ not only raises awareness of barriers, but actively helps break them down. This fits very well with ‘Authentic Beauty Concept’ and our understanding of an open, diverse community where everyone can find and experience their own individual form of expression,” Schürmann says.
Swatch books and touch tour
Before the fashion show, the guests met in a separate room and were handed books with beautifully arranged fabric from Susan Fang’s collection, as well as beads and flowers that are part of Fang’s designs. For me personally, it was the first time I’d ever seen anything like this, and what I loved most was that the book doesn’t just play with the feel of the patterns and fabric, but also with the colors. For someone like me, who isn’t totally blind, contrast plays a vital role. It helps me better understand the intensity of the colors. So, merging touch and vision felt crucial to understanding the concept behind Fang’s designs. For Fang, it was a new experience she really enjoyed. “There is so much about clothes that we don’t see. I love it when people feel the warmth and when the clothes transmit positive energy,“ she shares.
After the show, we were invited into Susan Fang’s studio for another touch tour. Fang also told us the story behind her collection. The idea was inspired by an opera about a young French diplomat who falls in love with a Chinese female opera singer, only to find out years later that the singer wasn’t actually female, but male. Because fashion and clothes reflect my identity, I draw inspiration from these stories and weave them into my own style.
Sighted people often think the most important part of fashion for blind people is the tactile aspect, but that’s just one small part. My approach to fashion started with understanding the cultural context of clothes in general, and popular culture in particular. Learning why certain fashion elements trended in one era but weren’t popular in another, and how political or social factors influenced designers, helped me develop my own style. As someone who was always deeply interested in arts and culture, it became a journey through time and history that helped me slip into different characters, mix and match them into what is now my style, which keeps changing with time. So, combining the tactile and visual elements that I can still see with the story of the collection, and with how it feels on your body as well as your understanding of what resembles your character most, is the perfect recipe for a blind person like myself to create her own style.
Style is also about being seen. So visual aspects matter to blind people too. Because at the end of the day, if you want to create your style as part of your identity, you want to express something to the outside world. And that world is mainly visual! To express what I want to represent, you need to understand the visual impact of your style.
This is why the touch tour, combined with asking the designer questions, is so important: you get inspired on different levels, not just through touch.
I also liked the conversation at eye level, which creates an empowerment blind people have hardly had in the fashion world. As Susan Fang opens up about her heritage, her inspiration, and her love for fabric and patterns, she takes us into her creative world, and thus makes us part of it.
Empowerment and fashion
Initiatives such as “Hair and Care“ and “Making Fashion Accessible“ are evolving, making accessibility a regular part of fashion. But there is still a long way to go.
We still don’t see disabled models on runways or in decision-making positions. Often, models that don’t fit the “norm” don’t get booked because brand managers believe their regular clients don’t want to see disabled models. Yet there is no evidence this is true. This doesn’t affect only disabled models; it also affects plus-size models, and 15 to 20 years ago, even models of color.
Looking at the studies, several arguments against this stereotypical view exist: In 2011, a study by Diedrich, Lee & Kelly found that people prefer seeing models who resemble their everyday lives. A 2025 inUK study reached the same conclusion.
Focusing on disabled people, Wang & Wie explore the effect disabled models have on fashion advertising. According to the study, disabled people in fashion advertising had a positive effect on most viewers, making them believe in the brand’s ideals. That said, there is no black-and-white answer. It always depends on who is watching the ad. Is it younger people? Older people? How do disabled people perceive the ad? The ones that achieved the most positive effect were the ones that included disabled people without tokenizing or stigmatizing their disability.
No easy way forward
The fashion industry isn’t more diverse because it lacks courage and imagination. If we look back at the fashion trends that still shape what we wear today, we can easily see that none of them came to life without that extra bit of courage—from the escapism that shaped the era of the 1920s after the First World War, and the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic, shaping the Gatsby era, to the Suffragette movements inspiring a whole new female appearance, to the revolutionary mini skirt in the 60s, or the punk spirit of the 70s. So where is the courage when it comes to disabled people? “We need to keep talking about it and disrupting the industry. Until every show one day becomes accessible for blind and low-vision people and other people with disabilities,“ Cofone says.
“We believe accessibility should be considered from the very beginning. This requires greater visibility, dialogue and, above all, brands and people who are willing to explore new paths. ‘Making Fashion Accessible’ shows very concretely what is possible. We hope to inspire other brands with this collaboration, so that one day, accessibility is not just about individual initiatives, but a regular part of the fashion and beauty industry,” Schürmeier says.
In addition: Let’s start improving representation by having more disabled models on catwalks, and more decision-makers behind the scenes. Many initiatives are already doing a great job in making the fashion world more inclusive. Still, they also need to find their way into the communities they serve by employing or involving disabled people. So maybe next year we might see a blind person working with Anna Cofone’s team to help make fashion even more accessible.
This article was written by Amy Zayed and first published on The Global Disability News Network, where you can also watch Amy’s Fashion Week videos.
The Global Disability News Network is a collaborative, community-driven and fully accessible multimedia platform sharing authentic disability stories and news from around the world, created by disabled people and their allies to amplify diverse voices and drive disability justice. Read more at globaldisabilitynews.org.