Mexico: Adriana Macias is a lawyer, but no law firm wanted to employ a woman without arms. Handicapped since childhood, the Mexican then wrote books, gave lectures and recently embarked on fashion, with a first collection that she designed ... with her feet.
Adriana drawing her fashion collection. (Photo: AFP)
Born without arms she was forced since childhood to use her feet in all the gestures of everyday life - Adriana Macias, 51, has used the time for prostheses with hooks. But she gave up because of the weight that caused her pain in the back. It is with her feet that she writes, makes up, cooks, cleans or dresses her three-year-old daughter.
Ardiana uses her feet to comb her daughter's hair. (Photo: AFP)
In April, Adriana Macias presented her new clothing line at Fashion Week in Mexico, where she unveiled an autumn-winter collection of 12 models in fluid fabrics and shimmering colours. Among the models, she wanted to scroll women or men with a physical disability. At one, one leg was missing, another was moving in a wheelchair.
"I created this line of clothing with all the details to make its clothes very comfortable and practical, but also very formal. Inclusion is a very topical issue and in reality, people do not have to adapt to clothes, but clothes have to adapt to people, "she told AFP.
She uses custom-made clothes that allow her to dress despite the lack of arms. Particularly agile with her feet, she uses them to comb her hair. As others would do with her hands, she adorns them with bracelets and rings and polishes her nails.
She uses her feet with great ease. (Photo: AFP)
"To go to university without my prosthesis was very complicated (...) and also to take off my shoes because it's rude to take off your shoes," she says, moving her legs with ease and naturalness. She graduated as a lawyer but could not find a job. "I was sad because nobody wanted to hire me (...) for everyone, it was weird, shocking that someone came and took off their shoes to ask for a job."
She then embarked on personal development conferences. She has written three books and a play on the subject. Then came the adventure of fashion. Her parents, she says, taught her to fend for herself. "I'm grateful for that because it taught me that because of my feet I would be independent," she says.
