Prior to 2012, Alicia Searcy was what she now refers to as “anti-fashion.” When she was very young, her mother, who was a model, would criticize her body. “My feet were too fat,” she recalls, “my arms were too big — things that a little kid can’t really help.”
Searcy was born with cerebral palsy. She uses a wheelchair and has difficulty with fine motor skills, which limited her options when it came to clothing.
“So for a long time,” Searcy says, “I was very anti-fashion. Didn’t want to do it, looked like a bag lady, proud of it. Rock on.” But she started to notice something. “People were treating me really badly because I looked so sloppy. They thought that I couldn’t think for myself. So I would go out with other people or try and connect. They would say to the people around me, ‘What does she want? … What will we do with her?’ So I decided to try and experiment and clean myself up and not look quite so dingy.”
Searcy started to see fashion as a language — something that can communicate who you are to the rest of the world. She began blogging about her experiment. In 2012, very few people were talking about making fashion inclusive of all bodies and abilities — and no one Alicia knew. Her interest led her to Nashville Fashion Week. “I was amazed at what they could do,” she says. “I was amazed at the talent in this town.” As she sat in the audience at an NFW event, she had the spark of an idea: “Why can’t we all do this?” In other words, why can’t fashion promote body positivity and self-esteem, while being inclusive of ALL bodies? Maybe it could.
Alicia Searcy wearing Laura Citron
She started discussing the possibility of a more inclusive fashion show with her friend and collaborator Krystle Ramos. She kept up her experiment and kept blogging. Then, in 2016, David Bowie died. “That just hit me in the head,” Searcy says. “And I went, ‘Oh no. David Bowie can die. If he can die, then I can die.’ ”
Buoyed by Searcy’s energy and vision, a small crew of volunteers put together the runway show she’d been dreaming about for years. Called Fashion Is for Every Body, the 2016 event sold out three days ahead of the show. Local fashion designers answered her call to work with models on clothing that met their needs. The annual show will take place Saturday, Sept. 10, at Studio615, and it will feature models wearing styles from local designers, a pop-up boutique, cocktails and bites, and an after-party.
“Adaptive clothing is something that has been modified, so that a person with a particular disability can put this garment on and/or use the garment in a way that they can do completely independently,” Searcy explains. There are magnetic snaps you can put behind buttons without changing the look of the garment. No one looking at it would know it’s a magnet, but for someone with limited fine motor skills, the alteration makes dressing and undressing much easier. There might be hidden loops that a wearer can use to adjust their pants when they sit down. A shirt might have a strategically placed zipper that creates easy access for a port.
Adaptive clothing is “kind of like a good fashion show,” says Searcy. “Nobody knows what goes on behind the scenes, because everything that comes out is beautiful. … But really, the important thing is, it puts us all on an equal ground and gives us the value as human beings that we deserve.”
Chelsie Nitschke volunteered at the first Fashion Is for Every Body show, helping behind the scenes. Nitschke is quadriplegic due to a 2011 car accident, but that didn’t stop Searcy from convincing her to model in the show the following year.
“I had never modeled before,” Nitschke tells the Scene. “I had no idea what to do, but I just kind of went along with it.” As Nitschke made her way down the runway for the first time, the shoulder of her dress crept up her neck. “I did a little impromptu thing where I slid it off my shoulder. I had no idea I had that in me!”
Some of the models on the Fashion Is for Every Body runway have physical disabilities, but others don’t. Searcy opens it up to anyone who does not see themselves reflected in mainstream fashion. People wearing plus sizes, people on the autism spectrum, queer people, people with anxiety — the philosophy recognizes that our bodies are often the sites and carriers of trauma. Using the language of fashion can help us heal.
Chelsie Nitschke wearing Rank & Sugar
Nitschke says her first walk on the runway felt “so empowering. You just feel yourself. … It was a push to get there, and I was super nervous at first. But after, with the praise from everybody around, the pictures that they took — once I saw the pictures, I thought, ‘Oh dang! I did look good!’ ” She’s modeled in every show since, and she’ll be on the runway this weekend.
This year, five local designers and brands are working with models on garments: Article X, A Lady of the Lake, Laura Citron, Any Old Iron’s Andrew Clancey, and Dahlia, which features Searcy’s designs. This year, Unhidden — an adaptive-clothing brand from London — will have pieces in the show as well. The designers learn a lot in the process about how their clothing can be more inclusive. There are plenty of practical reasons Fashion Is for Every Body should exist, but it all stems from what Searcy suspected years ago, back when she was ready to challenge her anti-fashion stance.
“Me, as a disabled person, [I’ve] had to really fight to be seen, and to be heard, and to be valued,” Searcy says. “I want you to see me as a fun, valuable person in society. … And I think a lot of people with disabilities want the same thing. A lot of people who are 60, same thing. People who are size 5X want the same thing. People who are LGBTQ. ... We want to be valued. And we want to be valued in a beautiful way. And that’s what we do.”
