Tommy Hilfiger makes clothing that is fashionable and still retains a classic look. It’s the clothing that the “cool kids” (or “cool adults”) wear. A new line of Tommy Hilfiger adaptive clothing means that kids who have disabilities can look just as cool as their classmates do.
The Tommy Hilfiger blog has a brief explanation of why the company created an adaptive clothing line. “Because every kid deserves a great pair of jeans”, it says. The same blog post points out that there are 73 million children in the United States of America, and that one in twenty live with a disability.
Tommy Hilfiger partnered with Runway of Dreams,which is a nonprofit organization what works with the fashion industry to adapt mainstream clothing lines to make them available for the differently-abled community. The new Tommy Hilfiger adaptive clothing takes into account the challenges that the differently-abled community faces each day when getting dressed.
One example of how this works is with the “End-On-End” shirt. At a glance, it looks like a typical, nice, button down shirt. What isn’t visible is that the shirt has been redesigned with faux buttons and cuff plackets that conceal a patented MagnaReady magnet closure.
There is also a dress that has been designed with the MagnaReady buttons along the back. The magnets make it much easier for kids who have disabilities involving muscular weakness, arthritis, or who are missing an arm or hand, to put on and take of these clothing items without help.
Perhaps the most exciting pieces of clothing in the Tommy Hilfiger adaptive line are the chinos and jeans. They were made with velcro and MagnaReady magnet closures on the fly and the pant legs. They look just like typical jeans (or chinos).
The difference is that the velcro and magnet fly makes it easier for kids with certain disabilities to open and close (which means they can use the bathroom at school without the assistance that typical jeans would require). The pant legs open at the sides and make it easier to fit leg braces inside them. Again, you wouldn’t notice any of these adaptations just by looking.
The Tommy Hilfiger adaptive line has 22 pieces for boys spanning sizes 4-20 and girl’s sizes 4-18. Every detail was considered so that the adaptive clothing looks exactly like the clothes in the Tommy Hilfiger Kids Collection. Clothing from either collection is the same price! That’s especially nice for families who often have to pay extra for something that is adaptive.
Today, children who are as young as seven or eight years old begin wanting to dress the same way as their friends do. Tommy Hilfiger’s adaptive line makes it a lot easier for kids who have disabilities to wear the clothing that they see their peers wearing.
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