Description

Today’s episode is about fashion with Stephanie Thomas. Stephanie is a Disability Fashion Styling Expert and Founder and CEO of Cur8able, a business dedicated to the art and science of dressing with disabilities. For over two decades she’s researched clothing and retail trends exclusively for people with disabilities. As an amputee herself, Stephanie believes this is more than her profession, it’s her lived experience. You’ll hear about how she got into fashion, what it’s like being a disabled entrepreneur, what it means to be a stylist, and more.

Transcript

[Google doc]     [PDF]

About

Born a congenital amputee missing digits, Los Angeles-based Stephanie Thomas is the CEO of Cur8able, a disability fashion stylist, and editor of Cur8able.com a lifestyle blog at the intersection of fashion and disability. She curates the blog according to her disability fashion styling system. Also, Stephanie is a trusted voice actor, audio describer, and member of the SAG AFTRA actors with disabilities committee.

Stephanie holds graduate degrees in communication and fashion journalism. She is also the author and editor of Fitting In: An Anthology of the Social Implications of Fashion and Dressing with Disabilities, coming August 2020. Recently Stephanie participated in the Instagram based #sharethemicnow campaign where she was matched with Selma Blair and took over Selma’s Instagram account for a day. The premise of the #sharethemicnow was to give black women access to audience of the women they were matched with. 

New Textbook: 

• Fitting In: The Social Implications of Fashion and Dressing with Disabilities (Coming Spring 2020)

Features: 

• The Business of Fashion:  BoF500 Creative Class List 2019
• Papermag.com Stephanie Thomas Puts in the Work to End Fashion Ableism
• Yahoo.com: Gwyneth Paltrow, Hillary Clinton among white influencers sharing their platforms to amplify black voices
• Dazed Beuty: Being More Radical About Diversity in the Beauty Industry
• The New Yorker: Adaptive Fashion on the Red Carpet  
• Highsnobiety Podcast- Fashion Identity: Disability
• Vogue Business: The $400 Billion Adaptive Clothing Opportunity
• Los Angeles Times: Filling the Fashion Void for Shoppers with Disabilities
• The Guardian: Why are there more clothing lines for dogs than disabled people?
• People Magazine Online: Stylist Works to Make Disability Clothing More Accessible
• Huffington Post: Fashionable World Games at UCLA
• Vox: Traditional Clothes don’t work for some people with disabilities – and that’s a major problem
• CCTV_America Video: Stephanie Thomas Discusses World Disabled Day
• KCAL 9 Los Angeles Video: Disability Employment Awareness Month with Stephanie Thomas  
• Vox Video: Consider It- How Adaptive Fashion Benefits Everyone
• Lightworkers Video: Fashion Styling for People with Disabilities

Website : www.cur8able.com

Instagram | Twitter | Facebook @cur8able

Stephanie Thomas Instagram @disabilityfashionstylist   

TEDx TALK: Stephanie Thomas: Dressing with Disabilities

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DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®

Credits

Cheryl Green, Audio Producer and Text Transcript

Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host

Lateef McLeod, Introduction

Mike Mort, Artwork

Theme Music (used with permission of artist)

Song: “Dance Off”

Song: “Hard Out Here for A Gimp”

Album: NO BIG DEAL

Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp

Music

“Onwards Upwards” by Ketsa.  (Source: freemusicarchive.org. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.)

Sounds

“VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

“8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.