Sinéad Burke On Launching an Adaptive Fashion Line with Asos

Asos is launching its first adaptive fashion clothing range, designed in partnership with disabled customers and strategic accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens, founded by disabled educator Sinéad Burke.

The project has been in the works for two years, Burke says, when Tilting the Lens began work on an open-sourced whitepaper on disabled people’s experiences with adaptive fashion, which was partly funded by Asos. Over 100 global disabled people were surveyed, and reported that discoverability, product accessibility, and limited product range were key issues when shopping for clothing, and that the category most lacking was occasionwear.

They also said that e-commerce, customer care, packaging and delivery create accessibility barriers. Eighty-six percent of participants cited comfort and fit as their leading purchase motivators.

The whitepaper’s findings informed the design process for Asos Adaptive, a 51-piece collection for men and women, with sizes ranging from XS to XXXL, designed via a collaboration between Asos teams, Burke’s Tilting the Lens, and disabled consumers. Launching on the Asos site today, the collection incorporates elements such as magnetic fastenings, hidden zips, elastic waistbands, discreet tube access points, concealed pockets (for device storage) and adjusted proportions.

The clothes are centered around occasion and formalwear, but also include some more casual offerings like T-shirts and knit polos. All pieces are priced between £32 and £65.

The process involved up-skilling Asos’s teams, guided by Tilting the Lens and informed by focus groups with the disabled consumers that were consulted (and compensated accordingly). “We were really excited that Asos were as keen as us to upskill teams across the organisation.

We had a shared belief that this was the secret to buy-in and ambition at every level,” Burke says. This included training sessions with the design teams about adaptive design and disability etiquette; with customer care teams to understand when issues need to be escalated from AI to live agent; and with the studio teams (across styling, copy, casting, photography and production) focused on disability etiquette, accessibility on set and product listing information, including imagery and product descriptions.

For the fast fashion retailer — which earlier this week announced Law Roach as its ‘stylist-in-residence’ — it’s a way to broaden out its customer base, and make its clothes more accessible to more people. The value of the disability consumer market is $675 billion, according to Disability IN.

To date, a number of brands including Tommy Hilfiger and Anthropologie have expanded into the adaptive clothing market. Adaptista launched in 2022 as a marketplace, but has since pivoted to developing its own clothes.

And earlier this month, clothing platform Weldun launched, aiming to bring functional luxury clothing to customers who need these pieces. But not all clothing on the site is fully adaptive (though some is), and the price point is higher than the average consumer may be able to afford, especially when cultivating a whole wardrobe, rather than a one-off piece.

“Asos has always been about helping customers discover the styles that feel like them. With this collection, we wanted to bring that same fashion-led approach to a category where disabled customers have historically had fewer choices,” Vanessa Spence, EVP of brand and creative, said in a statement. “Across everything from occasion dresses and tailoring to everyday pieces, we’ve considered style and adaptive functionality together from the outset.”

That working with a fast fashion retailer will likely raise eyebrows is not lost on Burke, who expects questions about sustainability and quality. “There will be important and necessary questions about partnering with Asos and the environmental impact of this sector.

This is a friction that happens across the accessibility industry — and one under constant debate,” she says. Working with Asos, though, offers an entrypoint that is lower-priced, in a category where product price points are typically high, due to higher production costs.

Tilting the Lens has consulted for a number of luxury brands and platforms (including Weldun), but many remain out of reach for a high proportion of the disabled population. Burke also notes that Tilting the Lens was adamant about quality, tailoring and fit.

Burke notes the high number of disabled individuals who are out of the workforce (over 46% in the UK). “If we want to increase the number of disabled people in employment, system change is needed. We need more accessible office environments, recruitment and promotion processes, reasonable adjustments and more,” she says. “But we also need to ensure that disabled people have access to clothing that is professional, easy to wear and affordable.”

To this end, she’s hopeful that this collection won’t be a one-off. Asos hasn’t committed to any future collections, and Tilting the Lens’s work with the company has ended, Burke says.

That said, she’s optimistic that demand will be high enough to drive the company to continue. Burke also hopes that this model of working can serve as a blueprint for other brands to incorporate adaptability into their business model; it’s why Tilting the Lens published its whitepaper as an open-sourced resource.

“We are hopeful that Asos Adaptive will continue, but we also know that this is a commercial decision,” she says. “We hope that customers find the collection to be beautiful, useful and we hope that non-disabled customers try it and wear it too.”