Nearly a fifth of the world's population is limited in some ways. And these restrictions often evoke one emotion in those around them - pity. However, do not rush to call these people "disabled" - they, like others, are specialists, parents, customers, and even ... fashionistas. Yanina Urusova, the founder of the Bezgraniz Couture project, spoke about the birth of the idea of ​​a fashion line for people with disabilities, and about the specifics of the project implementation.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​creating a line whose main target audience is people with disabilities? After all, such decisions are not made overnight ...

Nearly a decade ago, in 2007, when No Limits was being conceived, Tobias Reisner and I looked at every area of ​​life where we thought meaningful change could be made. Among the topical issues - advanced training, work, leisure - the idea of ​​improving clothing immediately arose. In 2010, we already organized the first international clothing competition Bezgraniz Couture International Fashion and Accessories Award. The main goal was to attract professional designers to create clothes for people with disabilities. From the very beginning, we focused not on individual tailoring, but on finding solutions for the industrial production of such clothes. Importantly, we immediately thought about entering the international arena. The global vision became possible due to the background that was behind Tobias and me.

You are right, such decisions are not made immediately. It took time to find the right partners and to study the specifics of the market we were going to enter. It was not easy, because, in essence, we are mastering a new segment, which is just beginning to form, and in many respects with the active participation of Bezgraniz Couture. For a long time I had to follow the empirical path, making assumptions and making mistakes. As marketers, we studied the characteristics of our future consumers, measured the capacity of that market niche, in which we plan to go out, and now we can say that we are ready for the next serious step - the production of the collection.

Business is a cold heart and a calm head, and thoughts about people with disabilities are (to varying degrees) heartache. How do you manage to combine these things and "do business"?

18% of the world's population are people with disabilities. Unfortunately, we have been taught to respond to them only with pity. When discussing people with disabilities, we touch on medical or social topics, but do not see them as consumers of goods and services.

Neither Tobias nor I have families with disabilities, so it was easier for us to keep a cool head when dealing with them. We look at the situation calmly, without emotions, and try to understand the real needs of this audience. Our experience shows that people with disabilities do not need pity. They lack, rather, sympathy and understanding. You have to accept them for who they are.

It is not so much the state of the body or their mental consciousness that makes people disabled, but the environment in which they live, which does not allow them to participate in society on an equal basis with others. This is actually stated in the "UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities". Now our task is to create conditions in which we will communicate on an equal footing.

Let's not dissemble that fashion for people with disabilities is a special segment. What are the biggest challenges you face while implementing your project?

In my opinion, the project has no difficulties, but there are very interesting tasks that I want to solve. Creating products for special people is a good test of professional strength, whether it's designing clothes or creating a barrier-free environment.

In the process of working with students of the British Higher School of Design, we realized that after the WearABLE Future training module, young designers discover the profession in a different way, learn to focus on client requests.

Are you able to achieve your financial goals at this stage, or are the goals still in other planes?

The main goals now are to determine the development strategy for the project in the near future, including the start of production of the first industrial collections.

What marketing tools do you use to promote your clothing line, and what is the main feature in marketing your products?

We are creating a new type of communication around disability, which we have defined as “rebranding of the disabled”. This is a new type of visual and intellectual culture. The project is presented at different levels - from participation in international Fashion Weeks in Moscow and Los Angeles to such art and journalistic projects as "Acropolis", scientific conferences, speeches in TED format.

The main feature in the marketing of our products is that we are proactive, at the intersection of innovation and fashion, so we always surprise and create a positive emotional space around our customers and the products they will use.

Business is partnership. Is it easy to establish partnerships?

At the beginning of our work, it was difficult to explain to potential partners the meaning and prospects of the project. It took perseverance and commitment to one's idea in order to show the high economic and humanistic potential of this cooperation.

Based on our development strategy, we consciously build partnerships in various business areas, thus creating unique products. We are very pleased that high-tech companies have begun to turn to Bezgraniz Couture.

By the way, all partners are leaders in their market segments. Publishing house "Burda" and the company "OTTO BOKK" supported us immediately. Since 2014, we have established cooperation with JSC Mercedes-Benz RUS, with which we have been holding Bezgraniz Couture collection shows for the third year in a row as part of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia. For the second year already, shoes for the show have been provided by the Russian brand ECONICA. In October, the A-Linker, a special mobility device for people with reduced mobility, created by Canadian designer Barbara Alink, was presented on the catwalk.

Visited a tour of the photo exhibition "Acropolis: how I found my body"

In the center of a large platform in the building of the Central Telegraph hangs a photograph that from afar resembles a bas-relief. Only when you come closer and take a closer look, you can see that people decided to play with the statues, and not quite ordinary ones, but the so-called “people with special needs”.

Someone goes to the Louvre to admire the Venus de Milo, someone flies half the world to admire the elegance of the lines of ancient sculptures. However, few people dare to compare a disabled person with a statue and see the beauty in an amputated body. The organizers of the exhibition “Acropolis: how I found my body”, which opened as part of the festival “Without Borders: Body, Society, Culture”, tried to do this.

“We have been taught to turn away from people who are missing certain body parts. With our festival and this exhibition, we hope to change the point of view of society, to help it discard stereotypes,” explains Yanina Urusova, director of the cultural center “Without Borders” and the author of the project.

The central photo of the exhibition was filmed for 8 hours. As planned by producers and photographers, ten young people with amputations were supposed to imitate famous ancient images. “Looking at an ancient Greek statue, we admire its beauty, not noticing the absence of a leg or arm, and it’s not even customary to look at a person without a leg in our society, we don’t know how to relate to this,” says Yanina Urusova. “Our project helps to realize the similarity of ancient statues with people who have amputated limbs, and look at people with other bodies without fear and hostility, and for the participants themselves to accept, “find” their body, their circumstances, their life in order to find harmony.”

On the wall next to the main work there are photographs of behind-the-scenes shooting: the enthusiasm for the process, the relaxation and ease of the models are fascinating. People from whom we are accustomed to look away, on the contrary, hypnotize.

Elena Kashirskaya, film producer, explains the reason for such looseness as follows: “We tried to create a relaxed atmosphere: from the very beginning we assured the models that everything would turn out beautifully as a result. Some photographers cheat by hiding injuries in pictures with a good angle. We were as frank as possible. We shot people as we saw them, without understatement, but also without accents.

The festival "Without Borders" is not limited to an exhibition. The organizers also invite everyone to a series of open lectures, which will be led by famous writers, philosophers, sociologists and journalists.

Yanina Urusova - co-founder (together with Tobias Reisner) and CEO of the NP Cultural Center "Without Borders", partner of the "Dialogue in the Dark" project. Urusova works at the intersection between art, science, sociology and journalism, creating artistic and journalistic projects aimed at changing the perception of people with disabilities. One of these projects was in 2014 the photo project “Acropolis: how I found my body”, dedicated to the Paralympics in Sochi, implemented in collaboration with the writer and journalist Linor Goralik.

Since 2010, Yanina is the co-founder and director of the Bezgraniz Couture international competition for the creation of clothes for people with disabilities, which in 2012 was nominated for the Made in Russia award.

Motivation Speaker at the 4th Forum of Young Leaders of Russia YouLead (15.11.13) and 5th Forum of Young Leaders of Russia Youlead (14.11.2014); Game Changer Speaker at INTERSELIGER 2014 (28.07.14).

Yanina is an expert in corporate communications and international exhibition projects. An architect and architectural historian by education, she defended her Ph.D. thesis in cultural anthropology at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and published the book "Das neue Moskau. Die Stadt der Sowjets im Film 1917-1941 | New Moscow. The Soviet city in the cinema 1917-1941 years".

- Why did you become interested in this area - clothing for people with disabilities? This is a very specific topic.

- The topic of clothing arose back in 2008, when Tobias Reisner and I (Tobias Reisner, CEO of the social project "Dialogue in the Dark." - "MN") started the Bezgraniz Couture project and looked at all areas where we could do something. The life of people with disabilities is not some kind of exception to the rule, but simply our whole life in general: there are no people with disabilities, there are people with special qualities and needs who just need to study, work, dress, read books, travel, get married, give birth to children.

In the process of work, it turned out that clothes are very important question for people with disabilities: a person who spends all day, for example, sitting, should have comfortable trousers that do not pinch or pull, do not move out, which are easy to take off and put on without assistance. In addition, clothes specially designed for people with special needs are also comfortable for their caregivers: this saves a lot of physical and emotional strength, because it often takes up to an hour a day to dress and undress.

It may seem that we are talking about some small marginal group, but in fact we are talking about a huge number of people on earth, and there are more of them every year. According to World Organization Health and the World Bank for 2012, about 975 million people on the planet (15% of the population) live with some form of disability. In the 1970s, this figure was about 10%. Just think how many such people! In addition, when we talk about the need for special clothing, we mean those who are temporarily disabled due to, for example, fractures, as well as the elderly. In fact, we are talking about almost all of us.

If you look at the problem from the point of view of a social entrepreneur, then this is a huge untapped market. It has not yet been discovered by the fashion industry only because people with disabilities in all cultures are traditionally on the periphery of public consciousness. Only in the last 50 years has the situation begun to change, and, to our great joy, the pace of these changes is accelerating.

— How does your Bezgraniz Couture project help these changes?

“We cannot change the world, but we can change the world of fashion,” we said at the very beginning of our project. After all, clothing is a huge part of our lives, and the fashion industry is one of the largest in the global economy.

Since 2011, we have been hosting the Bezgraniz Couture™ International Fashion And Accessoire Award, an international fashion design competition for people with body features. To participate in the competition, we invite designers and fashion houses from all over the world, ready to direct their creative efforts in a new direction. Fashion experts from nine countries select the best collections that take part in the final show. They are shown by models with disabilities.

Walking the catwalk for our models is a great opportunity to show yourself and see yourself from the other side.

In 2012, we received more than 80 applications, 60 models with disabilities showed the collections of twelve designers from Russia, Germany, Brazil.
Interest in our work of professional media and people with disabilities themselves - in fact, end users - is growing. In Tomsk, St. Petersburg, Ufa, similar competitions began to be held to create clothes for people with disabilities. And on April 1 of this year, within the framework of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, special screening clothing collections for people with various types disability — we managed to achieve this for the first time in the world.

The authors of the collections are Russian designers Masha Sharoeva, Sabina Gorelik, Daria Razumikhina, Dima Neu, Oksana Liventsova, as well as the winners of the Bezgraniz Couture contest Albina Biekbulatova, Sabina Volf and Miguel Carvalho. They are working on collections for people with cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome and the blind, as well as for people with amputations, small people and wheelchair users.

- People with disabilities show clothes at your shows. Who are they?

- We are looking for models for shows in Moscow, but they also come to us from St. Petersburg, Ulyanovsk, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod. For the show on April 1, for example, we are waiting for Angelina Uelskaya, a beauty with cerebral palsy from Minsk. We consider our models primarily not from a social, but from a professional point of view: the model must correspond to the type of disability for which the collection was created, the size of the clothes and the image that the designer came up with.

In the “Normal People” section, we talk about those whose activities make our country normal - open, friendly, comfortable for life. The choice of heroes is subjective. Therefore, if you think that we should definitely write about someone, then just suggest a hero in the comments to any article in the category.

A model is such a profession: it is not the essence that matters, but the body. On the other hand, the appearance on the podium for our models is a great opportunity to show themselves and see themselves from the other side. Many people say that after working with us they gained greater freedom of expression, felt more confident, felt a taste for life and a desire to change it.

The winners of our clothing contest receive serious cash prizes from project partners. Often they send them to continue development, as, for example, the winner of our 2012 competition, Natalya Kostina from Arkhangelsk.

- Didn't our country ever think that such clothes are needed?

— In Russia, the pioneer of this direction was designer Valentina Mikhailovna Volkova, a member of the jury of our competition, who back in 1972 at the Albrecht Center in St. Petersburg defended her dissertation on designing clothes for people without both hands. In addition, she managed to get the state to pay for the production of these clothes for customers. For example, for people without hands, they sew clothes there for free. Currently, work is underway to add to this list such types of disabilities as cerebral palsy, blindness, musculoskeletal disorders (wheelchair users) and radical mastectomy. Valentina Mikhailovna also developed a remote method of taking measurements, when she can be taken anywhere, choose a fabric, style and send for the production of clothes to the Albrecht Center, where such clothes will be produced.

Another example is Albina Biekbulatova, director of the Institute of Design and National Cultures of the Ufa state academy economy and service. Albina defended her dissertation on designing clothes for children with scoliosis. Her collection of school uniforms with stiffening ribs took 3rd place at the Bezgraniz Couture 2011 competition. Trial batches are already being produced at the Ufa knitting factory, and on April 1 at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Moscow, Albina will show a new collection that uses a special fabric that remembers the shape of the body.

Even maternity wear emerged as a trend in the fashion industry only in the 1970s. Before that, you had to wear something one size larger, or men's shirts, or wide sundresses.

For some reason, clothes in the context of disability seem to everyone to be the last need, although this is our second skin, and for all of us it is important what we wear and how we look. Why didn't they think of this before? Apparently, the human population in recent centuries has become so sharpened to the standard that any deviation simply falls out of perception. Interestingly, even maternity wear emerged as a trend in the fashion industry only in the 1970s. Before that, you had to wear something a size larger, or men's shirts, or wide sundresses. And now, look - this is a refined industry, clothes for every month, with suspenders, fasteners, everything is very expensive.

— If the clothes are for people with special needs- A promising niche, why are so few entrepreneurs doing this?

“We are not talking about super profits here. This is social entrepreneurship, and a social entrepreneur is essentially Don Quixote, he is interested in solving a social problem, he creates products, services and jobs in a socially disadvantaged area: make wheelchairs, sew clothes for the disabled, create jobs for mothers, children who have a disability, or come up with an accessible patronage service.

A social entrepreneur is a creative and somewhat passive figure, especially in the startup phase. In addition, in Russia, when Tobias and I entered the market in 2009 with the ideas of social entrepreneurship and said that only projects that are not entirely dependent on sponsors or government subsidies can be sustainable and solve the pressing problems of socially disadvantaged sections of society in the long term , they looked at us as capitalists, they did not know how to perceive us.

A couple of years ago, social entrepreneurship became a fashionable topic, now at the state level. Now we are invited to expert councils and conferences to share our experience. You need to understand that you Cultural Center Without Borders does not make money: we live on funds provided by sponsors for projects such as Acropolis, fashion contests, fashion shows for the disabled as part of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, and so on. It is still difficult to find sponsors for projects with disabilities.

- What are the specifics of clothing for people with disabilities?

“Of course, this clothing has specifics, but at the same time it is universal: design solutions designed for wheelchair users, for example, are convenient for everyone who spends their lives sitting at a computer, driving a car, watching TV. I once tried to wear trousers from the collection of German designer Gabriele Jost, who participated in the Bezgraniz Couture 2011 competition, and wore them all week, they were so comfortable.

Clothes made for people with motor disabilities will be comfortable for both the elderly and young children. If you have a broken leg or arm, and you need to wear a decent suit to come to an interview, a job, or, for example, a wedding, then you will face the same difficulties as a person with a prosthesis.

By the way, many amputee survivors refuse prostheses for the very reason that it is too difficult to dress and undress. They "wear" crutches and get spinal problems leading over the years to the need for surgery. I know a handsome, successful gentleman who found himself in just such a situation. He told me: "If I had known about the consequences, I would have worn a prosthesis." Why do you think he didn't do it? Yes, because it was very uncomfortable for him to dress, get into the car.

Fragments of ancient sculptures do not cause us internal protest. No one would think of calling Venus de Milo an "amputee"

I know people who wear a prosthetic leg, who take it off with their trousers in the evening, because it is easier, and put it in a corner, and in the morning they put on their trousers along with the prosthesis. It's not human in any way. Why, if there are a lot of simple design solutions? Trousers or jackets with zippers on the sleeves or legs, made of elastic fabric, with a different pocket design so that they do not bulge when sitting. I am sure that such technologies will gradually enter our lives and become commonplace - like computer technologies that are now used in various fields.

- If it's all so convenient, why can't you go to any store and buy such clothes? Why is it expensive and inaccessible? Are there any difficulties in sewing such things?

- The creation of such clothes is at the very beginning of the journey. While we can not talk about serial production, we are talking about individual tailoring. And it is always a little more expensive than a thing bought in a store. In addition, to create such clothes, ecological materials are recommended or those from which equipment for the army, for space is made: they must repel moisture, not wrinkle, dry quickly, remember the body, and so on. It is not yet produced in China for the mass market.

In the future, I hope not too far away, through our efforts and the efforts of our colleagues in Russia and around the world, the fashion industry will discover the topic of creating clothes that are comfortable for everyone. And today in Russia there are state programs and private funds that pay for the purchase of such clothes.

For example, the purchase of clothing can be recorded as an expense for individual program rehabilitation (IPR), just few people know about it, you need to clarify these points in the social security authorities. In the Albrecht Center, as I have already said, if we are talking about cases with amputation of both hands, the state pays for such clothes under the IRP, in other cases the director of clothing production is looking for money in a friendly charitable foundation.

Of course, these clothes are not cheap yet. For example, a three-piece suit for people with disabilities can cost about 40,000 rubles. But this is your convenience and freedom. In addition, as you know, they are met by clothes, so clothes turn into a way of social rehabilitation, not only for the disabled, but also for society itself. “We are ambassadors in the world of “normal” people, because a beautiful disabled woman is a revolution in consciousness. A disabled person does not beg, this is a stereotype,” these are the words of Anastasia Vinogradova, one of the models of our Bezgraniz Couture competition.

- Now you have taken another step to change the attitude of society towards the disabled - this is the exhibition “Acropolis. How I found my body. How did you come up with such a shocking idea?

- The idea was suggested by the Pergamon altar depicting the battle ancient greek gods with giants. This work of antiquity, like many examples of Greek and Roman art, has come down to us in fragments. However, the fragments of sculptures exhibited in museums around the world do not arouse our internal protest. It would never occur to anyone to call Venus de Milo an "amputee". With this project, we want to offer to look at people with "other" bodies living next to us, with different eyes. Without fear and stereotypes imposed on us by society. We suggest thinking about the barriers that are in our minds. You need to remove fears, stop looking away.

At the exhibition, which opened on March 11 in the creative space of the DI Telegraph project partner on Tverskaya, the viewer will see a photo panel depicting young people and girls who survived amputations in a complex composition reminiscent of ancient Greek sculptural friezes.

We have been looking for our models for a long time, they are mostly athletes, including members of the Russian Paralympic team. Real heroes who have overcome both themselves and the attitude of society, who have achieved success in life, accomplished beautiful people. Within the framework of our festival “No Borders: Body, Society, Culture” there will also be open free lectures on the relationship between the body and society with leading modern philosophers, religious scholars, sociologists, and fashion historians. We also came up with a workshop on creating clothes for the disabled: anyone who wants to, for example, people with disabilities themselves, mothers of children with handicapped or fashion designers can come and try to come up with and create such clothes, offer their ideas and bring them to life.

Anastasia Vinogradova, 31 years old, model, fashion analyst, public figure, wheelchair user

- Participation in shows as a model was exciting, but interesting. I got a new round of my self-development, began to attend fashion shows, started writing a fashion blog. A disabled person is a kind of coach for society, they should get used to us. We exist, we are beautiful, we are the same as everyone else, and we also know how to take care of ourselves and wear beautiful dresses. When I first came to fashion week, the people around me were shocked, they looked at me with open eyes, not hiding their feelings: “What is a disabled person doing here?! My God, what is this? This year there was no such reaction, I was calmly accepted. But I still don't know where you can buy things for the disabled. The dress I showed off, I can't afford, it's too expensive. Casual clothes designed for us are also expensive. It turns out that special clothing, tailored for people with special needs, costs like haute couture. I wish it was more accessible. Although I understand that this is a problem - it is very expensive to make such specific clothes in Russia, the production itself is expensive.

Olga Glushkova, 40 years old, psychologist, disease of the musculoskeletal system

We have never worked in the modeling business. I persuaded my husband - men were required on the podium, and he has a beautiful figure. She literally pulled him by the hand. Alexey demonstrated the clothes of the Italian designer Pier Giorgio Silvestrin, I am Gabriele Yost from Germany. We were glad that they finally paid attention to the clothes for us. For example, I need help with dressing: putting something over my head or putting on trousers is difficult for me to do on my own. Designers have come up with special capes for crutches so that nothing rides up while walking, for wheelchair users - trousers with a high waist, they are comfortable to sit in. Instead of buttons - light clips, buttons, Velcro. But it needs to be more affordable. Many of us have non-standard figures. Usually in the store we pick up a whole pile of clothes and go to the fitting room. We tried to contact the tailors, but this is also not an option - our last order has been made for six months. If we are talking about a disabled child, he will have time to grow up during this time. Special shoes are also made for four months.

Fashion shows are also the rehabilitation of disabled people from a psychological point of view. I am a closed person, it is psychologically difficult for me to demonstrate myself. You reproach yourself, you think that you do not look very good, given the disease. But participation as a model helped me cope with this sense of self, now I feel more confident in public.

Alexey Mayuk, 30 years old, web designer, spinal injury (spinal fracture)

“It was hard for me psychologically. I was once healthy, but at the age of 17 I broke my spine. I took my disability hard. And when you are already in complexes, and then suddenly you are offered to go on stage, demonstrate fashionable clothes You enter a completely different world! Everyone sees your flaws. But it helped me. I became more liberated. Barriers were broken: I saw that they treat me like an ordinary person. Now I just do not react to the negative attitude towards me.

The clothes for the disabled that I showed are very comfortable. High waist on the trousers, sliding material that is easy to pull over the legs. False buttons, but in fact Velcro on fasteners, a large ring on the fly, so that it is convenient to pull and unfasten. Such clothes are very important when fingers do not work well, say, after various fractures, small details are very important to us. There is a variant of trousers with one wide leg-bag, for wheelchair users in cold weather it is convenient, because when the legs are immobilized, they freeze.