The module re-empthasises the importance of diversity within fashion, which demonstrated originality, proactivity and innovation. The brief for this project was to investigate new ideas and push the boundaries of current offerings in our field. This included 5 main factors: race, disability, gender, size and age. It was important to understand how each are affected within the fashion industry and how they have been tackled. Although varied awareness has been created for each sector, there are still gaps in the market that need to be addressed.
For my project, I decided to focus on blind accessibility within fashion. Therefore, lots of primary and secondary research was conducted to have a true understanding of the difficulties faced as a blind individual. A presentation via zoom of my ideas was then presented to my tutors, in order for them to have an understanding of the importance of the issue raised about blind accessibility. This was tackled from a business point of view as a H&M employee discussing the outcomes I wanted to achieve with this project for H&M as a company.
In the UK, two million people are currently living with a significant degree of sight loss. (National Eye Research Centre, 2020) Of these, around 360,000 are registered as blind or partially sighted (NHS, 2020). Touch X H&M wanted to adapt to creating a non-visual shopping experience that focuses on the sense of touch, to ensure inclusivity is available for all H&M customer-base.
The braille logo ‘touch’ was to capture the new launch of accessibility in fashion for blind consumer shopping. Not only does the logo assist visually impaired people to shop freely, it also creates awareness for people with vision loss. ‘Touch’ written and seen in braille aimed to drive discussion for all shoppers to create and raise awareness about blind accessibility. With the right accessibility available, blind/visually impaired (VI) people can be totally independent in day-to-day life.
Touch x H&M aimed to include 3 major senses touch, smell and hear. It was targeted at women aged 18-44 but ensures to be accessible to all ages who are blind/VI. The launch of the accessibility range aims to encourage those who are visually impaired to feel included in being able to shop for the latest trends freely and independently. Shopping should not only be limited to online forums; this should be accessible for customers to come into store and shop freely at their own accord. Scopes Everyday Equality Strategy (2020) highlights that people are disabled by barriers in society not by their impairment or difference. Therefore, this project aimed to create change in knocking down the barriers faced and to ensure inclusivity for all our customers in fashion.
The focussed project outcome was to create a document as a H&M employee proposing the ideas raised for blind accessibility in fashion. This included:
- Having a brand ambassador, Lucy Edwards who was diagnosed blind at age 17 who had a wide following on her social platforms.
- Working alongside RNIB to create impactful change, as well as use of PenFriend in store.
- Use of braille on packaging/branding across the store.
- QR codes on products.
- More affective store layout, considering larger spaces for easy navigation. This included a floor plan and sketchup design.
Bronte Woodworth 