Fashion for Visually Impaired Consumers: A Case Study Towards Inclusive Products

Abstract

Recently fashion brands and designers have been developing clothing having into account particular consumers, including individuals with some kind of disability. This paper has the main purpose of analysing fashion design product development through the research of elements, aspects, and concepts that can be useful for common and inclusive products. During the research, scientific papers, informative articles, and reports were found to address inclusive design as a useful tool for the development of inclusive products for disabled individuals. However, specific guidelines, foundations or models that could help fashion designers to develop products for visually impaired (VI) consumers are non-existent on inclusive design. Regarding the methods, from the literature review contends, were considered Inclusive Design concepts and user experience methods. These two main aspects were the foundation for the creation of the necessary questions of study, propositions, and units of analysis used in the case study. The study offers an original approach considering fashion designers and inclusive concepts, unfortunately, the number of cases is too small. Due to online research, aspects related to the designers’ products were not possible to comprehend, so in further studies could be important to interview these designers and understand the real product. Despite all the effort by designers and deserved merit the cases here presented are indeed specific projects with no projection within the global market. The contents and the findings will be an asset for the scientific community and the development of inclusive products in a fashion directed to VI consumers on a national and international perspective.