Adaptive fashion retailer EveryHuman has more than doubled its range and entered several new categories as it looks to become a one-stop-shop for people with disabilities to buy accessible products for everyday life. On Monday, the Sydney-based e-commerce business launched dozens of new brands on its site, expanding its offering beyond adaptive clothing and footwear to include accessible beauty, jewellery, tech, wheelchair accessories, home and book products. “Our goal for the future is to bec
to become the ultimate lifestyle destination for people with disabilities,” Matthew Skerritt, the founder of EveryHuman, told Inside Retail.
The new brands on offer include Ffora, a US-based brand of stylish wheelchair-attachable bags that has been endorsed by the actress Selma Blair, who has MS, and The Quick Flick, a cosmetics brand that sells a winged eyeliner stamp among other easy-to-use beauty products.
Other products include sensory-friendly headphones, fidget jewellery and necklaces that offer breathing regulation to support stress relief, as well as dexterity friendly cutlery and crockery.
Bucking the trend
Launched in December 2019 with 100 adaptive clothing and footwear products across men, women and kids, EveryHuman is one of the few online retailers targeting the underserved market of people with disabilities.
The clothes it sells feature easy-to-close magnets instead of buttons and snaps and deliberately lack seams and pockets, so they’re more comfortable to wear while seated in a wheelchair. But perhaps, more importantly, they’re also fashion forward.
“Function is the first thing we look at. How can this product be beneficial to someone’s life through the function and design,” Skerritt said, “but we always make sure the fashion or aesthetic element isn’t a compromise.”
In the past, finding products that look good and also meet their needs has been a challenge for people with disabilities.
“Disability sites historically have not been very fashion forward,” Skerritt said.
“There’s quite often a stigma attached to products that have been designed for people with disabilities. We’re really trying to buck that trend and make sure that anything that we onboard is fashion forward and aligns to [what] you would see in any other retail store.”
This approach seems to be working. The business has grown 120 per cent year on year, according to Skerritt, and last year, EveryHuman was chosen by Tommy Hilfiger as its local partner to sell the iconic US brand’s range of adaptive clothing in Australia.
EveryHuman recently started shipping to New Zealand, and Skerritt plans to continue adding new brands and products to the site in the months ahead.
“These customers want products, they want choice, they want offerings catered to their needs that don’t make them look like a grandma,” he said.
Major players get on board
The global adaptive clothing market is expected to reach US$4.2 billion in value by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 15.4 per cent from 2020. And increasingly, major brands are getting involved.
In February of this year, Nike launched the Go FlyEase, its first-ever hands-free sneaker that doesn’t require laces, zippers or straps to put on or take off. Users simply step into the shoes. Originally designed to improve the lives of athletes with disabilities, the shoes are now available to the public in three colourways.
In May, Unilever unveiled a new deodorant for people with limited arm mobility or visual impairments. Rather than a cylindrical tube, the packaging has a unique shape that is easier to grip, and the roll-on applicator is larger so it covers more surface area in one swipe. The cap also features a magnetic closure and a hook to enable one-handed usage, and the label features instructions in braille.
The deodorant is reportedly being beta tested by 200 people with disabilities before it becomes more widely available.