Changing fashion for all: How Aille Design is revolutionizing inclusive clothing

Amanda Cupido: This is The Forefront, a Toronto Metropolitan University podcast that explores ideas for cities. I’m Amanda Cupido. 

So here’s the problem: fashion, for most of us, is a deeply visual experience. We browse through racks of clothes, scroll through online stores, and make our decisions based on colours and designs. But what if you couldn’t rely on sight to make these decisions? What if the world of fashion, so vibrant and expressive, felt like an exclusive club that you couldn’t be a part of? 

According to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, 1.5 million Canadians identify themselves as having sight loss. So for people who are blind or visually impaired, this is a reality. The fashion industry, with all its creativity and innovation, has often overlooked the needs of those who experience the world differently. Shopping layouts and traditional clothing design both focus almost entirely on sight, leaving behind a significant portion of the population who wants to express themselves through what they wear, but find it difficult to engage with fashion on their own terms.

Sam Moore: I really like asymmetrical silhouettes, or I’ve always loved a blazer, but like, deep V, nothing underneath kind of thing. Like very feminine and light, but like a little bit of sass. I’d say that’s my favourite.

Amanda Cupido: That’s Sam Moore. She works and volunteers with organizations to plan events for the visually impaired community, and is a member of the community herself.

Sam Moore: I used to be very dependent on others, so when I was, for example, shopping as a child, it was very much what my parents and family chose for me.

Amanda Cupido: Sam also happens to love fashion and has spent years developing her sense of style with help from people around her.

Sam Moore: Colour was a big thing, because I’ve never seen it. If someone says, “Oh, that’s a disgusting green, you know, it looks like someone threw up,” I’m never going to wear that green ever again. If someone says, “Oh, I love that red, it looks so bright and fun,” then I’m definitely wearing that red again, because I associate that positivity or that passion with that colour.

Amanda Cupido: Now, as an adult, Sam is still dependent on others, not necessarily her peers, but dependent on brands, and whether or not they’ve made their website accessible for people living with visual impairments.

Sam Moore: What needs to be done on the back end is that things need to be labelled. So, for example, if a button on a website says small, medium, large, it may visually say that on the front of the web page. But if someone hasn’t sort of coded in what that says on the back, instead of reading small, medium, large or whatever the button says, it will just tell you the word “button” over and over. So that’s not helpful. And it has stopped me from shopping at certain stores.

Amanda Cupido: Not only is Sam limited in her options for where she gets her clothes, she’s faced with a common misconception: the belief that people who are visually impaired don’t actually care about fashion. 

Sam Moore: A lot of people think that we just don’t think about it or, “Haha, like it doesn’t matter.” When, indeed it does. We still work with sighted people and we still either have things we want to express for ourselves or we have to, I hate to say it, but, fit in. Fashion is a communication tool and it does help us communicate to people who are like us, but also different from us.

And so, to have that tool that can communicate to people different from us, to sort of bring them into our world instead of us always stepping into theirs, that’s a really nice shift too.

Amanda Cupido: Using fashion to bring others into her world is exactly what Sam has had the opportunity to do, specifically since becoming a co-designer for a fashion company.

Alexa Jovanovic: My name is Alexa Jovanovic and I’m the CEO and Founder of Aille Design, which is a Braille fashion company that works directly with the blind and visually impaired community to create fully legible Braille garments and accessories.

Amanda Cupido: Aille Design is spelled A-I-L-L-E, the same way you spell the ending of Braille. It initially started off as Alexa’s final research project in her Fashion Communications Program at Toronto Metropolitan University. She says learning about social change within fashion was what first sparked her passion for inclusive design.

Alexa Jovanovic: I went out window shopping, as I often do, kind of looking for inspiration, and I came across this really cool beaded jacket and sort of just had this aha moment. I realized the similarity in size between small beads and Braille, and kind of just questioned why this beautiful beaded jacket couldn’t have a function beyond its aesthetic value.

I mean, why couldn’t we move those beads ever so slightly to make phrases in Braille that were fully legible, could provide empowerment and visibility to a community that has so often been overlooked when it comes to fashion? So I immediately went home, did research. Nothing even remotely close existed.

Amanda Cupido: Right away, Alexa started reaching out to blind women in Toronto to learn more about the challenges they experience with fashion.

Alexa Jovanovic: Everything from, how do you choose what to wear and organize your closet, to do fashion trends actually matter to you, all the way to some of those bigger, challenging topics and misconceptions of what it means to look and feel blind.

Amanda Cupido: During her research phase, Alexa says she heard her fair share of criticism; mostly the same misconceptions that Sam mentioned earlier.

Alexa Jovanovic: I was getting a lot of comments from my fashion peers like, “Oh, like, that’s cool, I guess. But why does that matter?” And it really reinforced those stigmas of, if you’re blind you can’t dress nice, or you can’t look cool, or you can’t love fashion because you can’t see those things. So it really further propelled me to work that much harder.

Amanda Cupido: Alexa graduated from TMU in 2016 and Aille Design was put on pause. Fast forward to May 2019, she got some exciting news that catapulted the brand into the spotlight.

Alexa Jovanovic: I got this incredible phone call from CTV News. They happened to come across my portfolio website and wanted to do a story on Braille fashion. I was like, oh my goodness, this is amazing. Let me find this project again, and immediately started getting all of these responses from people who wanted to be involved in the project or wanted to purchase from us.

Amanda Cupido: With the positive reception to Aille Design pouring in, Alexa reached out to the TMU Fashion Zone. That’s an incubator that provides growth and funding opportunities for fashion innovation in Canada. They accepted Aille Design right away.

Alexa Jovanovic: The Fashion Zone was super instrumental in teaching me how to take all of this super impactful research and how to transform it into a business, because that was a skillset that I absolutely did not have, but was eager to learn and become a part of, because I knew what kind of impact what we were creating could have.

And then naturally, over the next couple of years, the business just started growing from research project to side hustle to me going full time with Aille Design.

Amanda Cupido: Now, Aille Design works closely with people who are visually impaired — like Sam — to create high quality, thoughtful, inclusive pieces that stand out. Sam says being part of the design process makes all the difference.

Sam Moore: I think what’s missing in the modern fashion industry for the blind community is design from the beginning. So often, they bring us in after they’ve made something, which is so strange to me, because the work that needs to be done is prior to that. It’s in your early design phase. It’s in the idea phase. Aille Design saw a gap in the fashion industry for blind and low vision clients and shoppers, and instead of just assuming what the answer was, they approached us first. 

They’re really big on co-design, whether it’s what phrases they use, even their laundry instructions. So when you order it, like anything you buy online, right? It always comes with a little sheet, maybe some info about the garment. It is always printed in size 12 or smaller font, and that’s it. Whereas Aille Design sort of asks: Do you need Braille? Do you need large print? Do you do not need any at all? Do you want it electronically? Like they just took us into consideration and asked questions that other people never really bothered to ask.

Amanda Cupido: Alexa says the feedback from the visually impaired community has been amazing, but what might even be more impactful is the reception of Braille fashion from people who aren’t visually impaired or blind at all.

Alexa Jovanovic: They themselves don’t have a disability or they don’t know anyone who has a disability, but they’ve fallen in love with the product and the mission, and they themselves have become advocates and champions for what we’re doing, despite not having a personal connection to it. And that’s where you create real, substantial global change in something like fashion, an industry that is almost never changing.

Amanda Cupido: So cool, right? And honestly, I’ve seen the designs firsthand, because Aille Design created little lanyards to give out as gifts from an alumni event, and when I opened the box to receive it, I was so impressed. And now I know why. Aille Design pieces are actually made with Swarovski crystal pearls, and their recent launch has been a huge success.

Alexa Jovanovic: We just launched a global campaign with Barbie and Mattel and the phenomenal responses that have come from that is exactly why I do what I do. And I feel like it’s really a testament to how much work we’ve put in over the past four years, and how significant and really needed Braille fashion has been in the industry.

Amanda Cupido: The t-shirts are bright pink and say “This Barbie is…” and then in Braille, the word “inclusive.” It’s so nice. They even have satin scarves with Braille and the Barbie logo as part of the collection. The Braille reads: 

“When we learn about those around us, we in turn learn even more about ourselves. The stories we share define who we are, build community, and make us better together.”

Okay, I’m tearing up over here. It’s just so nice.

Alexa Jovanovic: For the first time now, there is a major generation of people who can see themselves represented in fashion and in media, and feel comfortable about embracing who they are and not feeling like their disabilities are something they had to hide.

Amanda Cupido: Alexa says the reality is that lots of people feel like they have to hide their disability. Sometimes that even stops people from using a mobility aid, or from even learning how to read Braille at all. In fact, research shows that less than 10% of people who are visually impaired can read Braille, which can lead people to wonder how much of an impact can a brand like Aille Design truly have?

Alexa Jovanovic: Adding Braille onto our clothes is not just about the pure functionality of, “Some people will be able to read this.” But it’s really about creating that entire conversation about why this is important, normalizing its appearance on something beautiful that can now be used by absolutely anyone.

When you’re wearing Braille on your clothes, you know that you yourself value all people as equal, that you yourself are an advocate, that you care about others and how they’re treated. So it really becomes an extension of yourself.

Amanda Cupido: She explains that they use something called uncontracted Braille.

Alexa Jovanovic: And that means every single set of Braille beads is its own letter. So this also allows people who are interested in Braille and have wanted to learn Braille, but have been scared of that process, or intimidated, or have felt those stigmas, they now can slowly start to learn word by word and educate themselves about this in a setting that’s very comfortable and that has received a lot of positivity.

Amanda Cupido: And for Sam, wearing clothing designed specifically for her is a whole new experience that validates her skills and, at the same time, honours her disability.

Sam Moore: It feels like home. And it makes me feel like I can go into my office or my job and be taken seriously and have, for once, actually have my disability included in that. Because I find, unfortunately, especially in the corporate world or in my professional life, it’s always like you have to prove that that part of you is also capable, is also professional. And so to sort of have that written right on me and have people then inquire like, “Oh, is that Braille? Where did you get it? How is it made?” 

And to be able to share that with them, and show them that it allows you to be creative and show off that part of yourself. I can’t think of a time when I’ve worn it and not gotten a compliment on it, which is rare. I don’t have any other piece of clothing that has done that. It feels really great.

Amanda Cupido: Before we go, here’s Alexa one more time on how TMU helped Aille Design become a reality.

Alexa Jovanovic: I will pretty much always credit TMU as a whole to being just such a phenomenal support system, and being one of the main contributors to why Aille Design even exists. If it wasn’t for that early encouragement from all of my professors and my mentors within TMU, I don’t know if Braille fashion would have ever resurfaced as Aille Design.

Amanda Cupido: This podcast was created for alumni and friends by University Advancement at Toronto Metropolitan University. Special thanks to our guests on today’s episode: Sam Moore and Alexa Jovanovic. This podcast was produced by me, Amanda Cupido, and Jasmine Rach, who also edited the show. We are both proud grads of TMU. The team from the university includes Haweya Fadal, Meredith Jordan, and Rivi Frankle. To help fuel the research and learning coming from the Creative School at TMU, consider donating to Toronto Metropolitan University. Join us in shaping a brighter future together. Visit torontomu.ca/alumni/podcasts.