Caron Bitter-Phinney, Helen Weston, Anthony Lue, Varun Chandak, Izzy Camilleri and Andrea Wurster presented at the event.
AFAC officially launched with an event bringing together researchers, designers, industry leaders and people with lived experience.
The Adaptive Fashion Alliance, Canada (afac) officially launched with an event that brought together researchers, designers and people with lived experience to share their thoughts on what the future of adaptive fashion should look like.
Afac is a new, national organization, seeded by Kite Creates and FIBRE, that is working to make adaptive fashion accessible to all people living with disabilities, illnesses and age-related challenges. Its goals include increased advocacy and awareness, promoting greater collaboration between healthcare, design, retail, and manufacturing, and supporting best practices drawn from research and academia.
People and organizations who are interested in joining the group are encouraged to sign up at https://kite-uhn.com/fibre/afac.
The group is co-chaired by Helen Weston, a KITE research associate with KITE Creates and FIBRE, and Andrea Wurster, Vice-President of Products & Partnerships at Silverts. It was created with the help of a volunteer steering group that included Anthony Lue and Anita Kaiser, who have lived experience; Caron Bitter-Phinney from TMU; Susan Langdon, Laurie Belzak from the City of Toronto’s Economic Development and Culture office; and designer Izzy Camilleri.
The event, Advancing Adaptive Fashion in Canada, was presented by Kite Creates, Fabric Based Research Platform (FIBRE), and Toronto Metropolitan University. It featured a panel that included many of the steering group members, as well as Varun Chandak, Founder and Executive Director of Access to Success. A full recording is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMhuEcQHhQY