Disability-led high-end shopping platform Adaptista launches

Adaptista, the UK’s first disability-led high-end shopping platform, which aims to shift the narrative of what accessible and adaptive clothing should look like has launched.

The online platform features carefully curated adaptive fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands, including Constant & Zoé, BP3 Underwear and Free Form Style, which offer innovative solution-driven products tailored to people with disabilities.

Adaptista was founded by garment technologist and disability advocate Maria O’Sullivan-Abeyratne to address the lack of disability-led e-commerce options, offering truly adaptive solutions for people with disabilities. Even though the adaptive clothing market is currently set to grow by 121 billion pounds by 2026.

To ensure accessibility, Adaptista’s platform has been custom built and all features have been tested and implemented by disabled and inclusive software development experts, which are according to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.

In addition, the platform is partnering with Recite Me, a leading accessibility tool in the UK, which includes features such as text-to-speech, speech recognition, page translation, magnification and text styling.

Key fashion brands showcased on Adaptista include Customiety featuring adjustable clothing designs made with cords, Spanish brand Free Form Style which designs fashion adapted to different disabilities, Design by Björk's trendy, unique and practical clothing for wheelchair users and Constant & Zoé, an accessible ready-to-wear unisex clothing for children, adults and seniors.

Adaptista also includes beauty and lifestyle brands such as inclusive beauty brand Kohl Kreatives which specialises in tools supporting motor disabilities, transgender and cancer care communities and vegan and cruelty-free beauty brand Palm of Feronia.