Last weekend I sat in on a panel titled How Adaptive Design is Transforming Brands. As the name suggests, this panel was about adaptive design, but more specifically the role the fashion industry has in the drive towards accessibility and inclusion.

For those that aren’t familiar with the term, adaptive design here refers to the design of clothes for those with permanent or temporary disabilities.

These types of disabilities go further than just physical, the entire range of mental disabilities is something that is not always accounted for or remembered. This holds true with fashion designer Mindy Scheier. Scheier is the Founder and CEO of the Runway of Dreams Foundation, a nonprofit that works toward a future of inclusive design, acceptance and opportunity in the fashion industry for people with disabilities. Scheier is also currently serving as a consultant for the Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive Division.

Scheier has a very personal reason for getting into the business of adaptive design. Her son has muscular dystrophy and struggled to get on clothes to a point where he would wear sweatpants to school every single day. She spoke of a time when he came home after school and asked why he couldn’t wear jeans, because everyone else as school wore them.

After seeing his frustration, she altered a pair of jeans for him so he would be able to more easily put them on. Alas, Runway of Dreams was born.

In the panel, Scheier was joined by the Director of Zappos Adaptive, Molly Kettle, Melissa Langley of Ottobock and Paralympic competitor Scout Bassett.

The panelists spoke about their various personal stories and paths that led them to working with or near adaptive design.

The most interesting story I heard was from Bassett, where she spoke of a time in a department store where a small child noticed her prosthetic leg and pointed, saying “Look mommy she has a robot leg!” Bassett expressed her understanding that the child meant absolutely no disrespect, they just weren’t familiar with a prosthetic. The mother immediately hushed the child and told them to be quiet.

What was most enlightening however, was that after the mother’s hushing of the child, Bassett then went up to the two and let the child know a little bit more about what it was and let her touch it so she could realize what exactly it was.

There isn’t a fashion designer who can design for people with disabilities without including people with disabilities. Include them in the process.

Mindy Scheier

Education is extremely important when it comes to most societal issues, but educating youth on disabilities is one of if not the most important. Bassett stressed the importance of not dismissing a child and acting as if something is wrong when they point out a disability, because that will then condition the child to associate negativity and wrongdoing with disabilities—further alienating the community and increasing the knowledge gap.

That’s where we are with this—education, and positive association. Bassett encouraged those who have small children to allow them to ask these questions, and if they see someone with a prosthetic to [politely] ask about it or the situation in order to help the children, and themselves in most cases, understand a little more about what people with disabilities go through on a daily basis.

“The landscape will shift more and more quickly—exponentially going faster and faster, and one day [I hope] we’ll look back and say ‘remember when we HAD to talk about this?’”

Molly Kettle

When we begin to have these conversations and include everyone at the table, then we can start to integrate the needs of those who have been traditionally underserved.

“The greatest and easiest way to start is just by inviting these people into your worlds and it will grow. People with disabilities are the largest minority, but we don’t even consider them as a minority” said Kettle.

Great things are happening at Runway of Dreams, Zappos, Ottobock and within the disabled community. It is people, like these four amazing women on the panel, who are making strides when it comes to inclusion and accessibility.

If you can take one thing away from this, just remember that people with disabilities are people first.