Reinventing the Wheel with Style

Women liberated by their wheelchairs are celebrated at the annual Rolling with Style Gala during Fashion Week in New York.

By Kelly Rouba

Wendy Crawford, chairwoman and founding member of Discovery through Design, rolls on the red carpet in a chair and outfit designed by Thom Browne.

Last month, seven women made history by becoming fashion “roll models” when they rolled down the runway in their wheelchairs during the peak of Fashion Week in New York City.

“You are truly part of a historic event,” said Marilyn Hamilton, creator of Quickie wheelchairs, as she addressed nearly 600 attendees following the fashion show. “This is the first time this is being done.”

Part of the “Rolling with Style Gala,” the fashion show was organized by the nonprofit group Discovery Through Design (DTD) in an effort to promote equality among women. The event took place at Cipriani on 42nd Street and brought a host of celebrities- from supermodel Kim Alexis to Prince Lorenzo Borghese-out to the red carpet.

Hamilton, who was injured in a hang-gliding accident, was one of four women with spinal cord injuries who founded DTD about three years ago. Fellow “chairwomen” include Wendy Crawford, Ashley Lauren Fisher, and Julia Stockton Dorsett.
Love for Fashion

As the driving force behind DTD, Crawford set out to create an organization devoted to changing society’s perceptions of women with disabilities. “We wanted to create awareness for women with disabilities,” Crawford said. “They can still be beautiful and they can still be productive.”

Crawford, who is quadriplegic, was injured at age 19 in 1983 when a car she was in was struck by a drunk driver in her native Ontario. She had just landed an international modeling contract when the accident occurred. Although her modeling career came to a halt, Crawford’s love for the fashion industry eventually led her to develop DTD. “I wanted to do something with the fashion industry and combine it with fundraising. I was thinking, they do designer everything, so why don’t they do designer wheelchairs? That would be pretty cool,” Crawford said.
With this in mind, she turned to Fisher, Hamilton, and Dorsett for help. “Wendy wanted to host a fashion show featuring women wheelchair-users and came to me for help because I also was a former model,” said Fisher, who became a quadriplegic when she was injured at the age of 23 in a diving accident. Fisher said she decided to expand upon the idea by making the event into a fundraising gala.

“[We decided] to raise funds for spinal cord research, but also for women’s health initiatives,” Crawford said. Proceeds from the event benefited the Christopher Reeve Foundation, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and The Spinal Cord Injury Project at Rutgers University.

Making a Statement

Fisher also had another suggestion for Crawford. “I said, ‘Let’s make a statement. We need to be a part of Fashion Week and we need to be seen as fashionable women.”

To help them, the chairwomen recruited eight top fashion designers from around the country.

Design teams, which ranged from Nicole Miller to Zang Toi, all agreed to lend their talents by decorating brand new Quickie wheelchairs.

The group wanted the designers to think in terms of people with disabilities by designing wheelchairs that look more fashionable and can be considered an accessory, Crawford said.

“[A woman's] wheelchair is like her shoes and sometimes you feel like you don’t have the right shoes for your outfit: It could be made more appropriate for the occasion,” remarked John Arguelles, president of Lloyd Klein.

“When Ashley approached me to design a covering or accessory for her chair, I was thrilled, because it presented a new challenge,” Klein said via e-mail. “I designed her chair with the theme and style of my current dress collection, which is a tribute to the great couturier Madame Gres.”

Arguelles said it took a total of 360 hours, from designing the prototype to producing the finished model, for six designers to create Fisher’s wheelchair. “It was the first time we had ever done anything like this,” he said. “To have very talented designers in a group get involved, I think was a wonderful idea.”

Klein and Arguelles met Fisher at a benefit for the Christopher Reeve Foundation several years ago. “Lloyd had sort of a connection with her,” Arguelles said. “He had been in a car accident about three years ago. He was hit by a drunk driver. He was put into a coma [and] his face was fully smashed. It easily could have been a broken neck. It changed his perspective on the important things in life.”

Roll Models

Fisher’s accident also changed her outlook on life. Although she felt defeated by her injury at first, she told attendees that her pain became her strength. “It is what we do with our experiences that guide us out of sorrow,” Fisher said, adding, “We are all women continuing to live our dreams and achieve our goals.”

To help them make a presence on the stage, DTD held a nationwide search about two years ago in an effort to find four women to serve as fellow “roll models.” Crawford said the women were chosen based on their accomplishments-not their appearances.

All of the women received a Quickie wheelchair donated by Sunrise Medical Inc., where Hamilton works as vice president of Global Strategic Planning. The women were then paired up with a designer who glamorized the wheelchair and provided them with an outfit to model on stage at the end of their collection.

Paralympian athlete Julia Stockton Dorsett, another of Discovery through Design’s “chair-women,” rolls on the runway in an outfit by Nicole Miller.

“It was a one-of-a-kind experience,” said roll model Michele Boardman, 20, of Harleysville,
Pennsylvania. Boardman has muscular dystrophy and has relied on a wheelchair for mobility since she was 14. She currently attends Arcadia University and plans to enter the field of pediatric genetic counseling. “I love my new chair. Jarome [the designer from Baby Phat who did her chair], did a great job,” Boardman said. “I have received several compliments and everyone says my chair is amazing.”

Rosemarie Rossetti, Jenny Smith, and Melissa Holley also were selected as roll models from an overwhelming number of applicants, Crawford said. “They were representing the incredible women that are out there. I want the world to see that we can be productive and that we are productive and contributing members of society.”

“They are so inspiring to me,” remarked Deborah Gibson, who performed a number of her musical hits at the end of the evening. “They are not limited in what they project.”

“Women in wheelchairs tend to be overlooked. However, I am proud to say no longer,” Fisher said, adding, “We are reinventing the wheel in a beautiful and unique way.”

For more information on Discovery Through Design, please visit www.discoverythroughdesign.org.

Kelly Rouba is a freelance writer who lives in New Jersey.