Style beyond the eyes: Designer ventures into adaptive clothes for visually impaired persons

This prompted Wanjiku to venture into fashion design that includes persons living with visual impairment. 

 “Hisi design came up as my university undergraduate project paper. This came about from my interactions with visually impaired children from Thika School of the blind, where I grew up. I then started Hisi Studios as a business,” Angela says. 

Wanjiku chose the name Hisi for her brand, which is the Swahili word for feel, since that is how the prints from the brand are experienced. 

“All our clothes have braille on them, so that people can feel by touch. The objective of my brand is to be champions of inclusion for the visually impaired. And later grow into advocacy for people with disability,” she remarks. 

“I believe fashion as a tool for expression and communication should be experienced by everybody. Having prints, writings and slogans that exclude a group of people.”

She offers further support to people with visual impairments by giving funds from her business to braille literacy programs which use them to buy braille paper and braille machines.

To make it easier for people with visual impairments to shop, Hisi Studios has a unique QR code for every piece they make, once they scan it, it reads out to them the size, colour, material and wash and care instructions. 

This allows the visually impaired customers to shop independently. The prints have tactile lines, and the braille on the clothing can be fully read by touch.  

“The whole design process involves having visually impaired designers working with them. They sit down and asses what needs they need to try solve in the collection we are coming up with,” Wanjiku explains. 

In order to design for the visually impaired, Wanjiku had to learn braille. 

“I am now braille proficient and do the braille myself. Another challenge would be; within the disability community, most people are quite tight knit, breaking through and gaining their trust has not been easy, but with time, we have shown them we are trustworthy and we genuinely would like to make positive impact in their community,” she says.