While the New York Fashion Week runway was fiercely Anti-Trump, LFW's opening show kicked off proceedings with one powerful celebration of diversity. Brit design duo Teatum Jones - Catherine Teatum and Rob Jones - cast two disabled models in their AW17 show entitled ‘The Body’ on Friday.
Kelly Knox, who was born without the lower left of her right arm and 27-year-old male model Jack Eyre’s who had his leg amputated when he was 16 (and was the first disabled man to model at NYFW) walked down the TJ runway as an extract of Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech played.
'It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter,' Steep said, accepting her award last month. ‘Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.’
‘Able and disabled bodied people don’t have different desires when it comes to fashion,’Catherine Teatum told The Telegraph. 'They want great textiles, interesting shapes. Kelly and Jack are dressed in the collection like the other models.
Catherine continued: ‘We’ve just had conversations with them about how to adapt their clothing. The overriding message is that we’re all the same.’
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