Flair Adaptive

Flair Adaptive
Project Type: Human-Centered Design (accessibility/fashion)
Location: Edmonton, AB
Date: 2022
Role: Student

After completing an adaptive design fellowship with Open Style Lab, I discovered there is often a lack of femininity in accessible clothing. To help address this, I created an adaptive lingerie line for a 500 level design class.

Inspired an art movement that celebrates organic sensuous curves and natural forms, Flair Adaptives’ 2023 lingerie collection honors the natural beauty of people of all abilities. Utilizing the refined colours of art nouveau, this collection allows the wearers to feel sexy without sacrificing function.

The garments use a variety of custom designed and 3D printed magnetic closure for easy donning and doffing without sacrificing aesthetics.

I was unable to find volunteers for primary research within my project timeline, so I used an ethnographic approach by examining my own disability experience and leveraging my Open Style Labs (OSL) fellowship.

The OSL fellowship highlighted the lack of sexiness in accessible fashion. I conducted secondary research on disability and sexuality, supporting my hypothesis, and analyzed existing accessible undergarments. I found a market gap for lingerie-focused accessible lines and discovered that magnetic closures had more benefits than snaps or velcro, despite often being large and unsightly. Thus, I aimed to design cohesive, attractive garments with 3D printed functional closures.

Inspired by Art Nouveau’s sensuous curves and sophisticated palette, I created initial sketches and technical flats, selecting comfortable, breathable fabrics. I began with a bralette prototype, using myself as a test subject and iterating until satisfied. This iterative process continued as I expanded the collection and developed new closure types.

Rapid Prototyping:

The ability to go through countless iterations in relatively little time, particularly for the magnetic closures, allowed for a very refined final prototype. It allowed me to continually test new and creative methodologies, like imbedding the 3D prints in mesh fabric for easy sewing construction.

Limitations:

I am very proud of the outcome of this project and believe I have created an innovative and successful solution based on my experiences. However, this said the project was limited by a strict timeline and a lack of access to additional interviewees to test my design problem and prototypes.

Next Steps:

Moving forward I would love to continue with this project and take the time to properly explore the challenges and limitations that will inevitably arise with a greater user base. This collaboration can only improve the designs, ideally to a real world marketable level. I would also love the possibility of focusing solely on the closures in themselves as a solution for multiple types of accessible clothing or being available for self hacking for disabled people.