Company Profile:
Open Style Lab
Open Style Lab was founded to create functional and stylish clothing for people with disabilities. Their multi-disciplinary educational programs team engineers, designers and occupational therapists with clients with disabilities. This approach helps Open Style Lab develop unique solutions through a user-centered design and a rapid prototyping approach. The resulting designs are distributed to the public online and through manufacturing and retail collaborations with industry.
Q: If you had a theme song, what would it be and why?
A: Tchaikovsky's one-and-only violin concerto in D. Epic with a variety of stunning cadenzas performed all over the world, I hope my life can similarly give others opportunities to live out their best and most beautiful.
Q: What historical breakthrough do you think is most underappreciated or misunderstood?
A: Not quite a historical breakthrough, but a significant historical figure, Frida Kahlo, who often receives renown for her starkly intimate and honest self-portraits, has also been emulated for her style. Known as 'Peg-leg Frida' after polio and a motor accident took away one of her legs, she stands out as a person with a disability who communicated volumes with her dress and continues to influence in fashion today.
Q: I am #BreakingThrough...
A: I am #BreakingThrough assumptions about disability and beauty by bringing to life the clothing dreams of people with disabilities.
Q: What's the most inventive, innovative, or disruptive aspect of your initiative?
A: Providing a platform for fashion designers, clinicians and engineers to collaborate with a person with a disability.
Q: What advancement has made the work you're doing possible?
A: The Americans with Disabilities Act, which was passed in 1990. It laid the groundwork for the basic expectation that people of all different abilities should have equal opportunities to participate in mainstream life.
Q: Please tell us how your business idea was conceived. Was there an "aha" moment or did it evolve gradually?
A: I met a lady diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during my graduate career, while doing patient interviews in hospitals. Determined to solve "significant problems", I asked her what she missed most about being healthy. She surprised me by talking about her difficulty dressing independently that morning, a need so starkly basic and intimate, but that usually goes unnoticed. As a child, I had always wanted to be a wardrobe designer, so I jumped at this opportunity to combine my medical engineering training and interest in creating beauty!
Q: What single word or phrase best describes the culture of your startup and why?
A: HUSTLE.
It isn't widely known that dressing is a challenge for people with disabilities, much less a strong industry presence meeting this gap in the market. So, we are constantly focused on making full use of every opportunity to grow a community of partners, manufacturers and retailers with whom we can change the fashion landscape to cater to people of all abilities!
It isn't widely known that dressing is a challenge for people with disabilities, much less a strong industry presence meeting this gap in the market. So, we are constantly focused on making full use of every opportunity to grow a community of partners, manufacturers and retailers with whom we can change the fashion landscape to cater to people of all abilities!