Chennai designer creates disabled friendly clothing

Chennai: The government’s guidelines asking disabled people to stay alert and still for respecting the national anthem may have triggered outrage but such an attitude is only the tip of the iceberg as there is still absence of a basic disabled friendly infrastructure at most public places in our country.

Meanwhile there are positive steps being taken for helping people with disabilities and like several issues, the fashion industry seem to be leading the campaign for making life better for disabled people as well. The latest initiative comes from Chennai girl Shalini Visakan, who is designing practical clothing for disabled people.

The 30-year-old’s journey started when she made small but unique things for making travelling convenient for her wheelchair bound husband, starting with belts and handles attached to his clothes, and went on to design attire that needed less assistance.

The NIFT graduate then also made similar dressing for her wheelchair bound aunt and seeing how effective it was for people, Visakan launched her own line of adaptive clothing called Suvastra Designs. She worked with differently abled children and came up with changes like adding Velcro and magnetic buttons along with innovative designs to suit their needs.

Shalini customises clothes from her home and her designs include indo-western party wear, sarees, salwar kameez with shrugs attached to them, crop tops and dhoti pants for men. She is also planning to open a boutique for her collection.