Park 1

From Waist Height and Wearing 6

 

Park 1Is it still possible to dress for success if you are bed-bound? Yes!

How does one make splints and mobility aids look good? We will make it happen.

If you spend most of the day lying down and or in a wheelchair (mine is gorgeous metallic sapphire blue!) this impacts on the kind of clothes you can choose to wear.

I firmly believe and am living the proof that it is possible to dress beautifully and creatively even when we have to take into consideration multiple physical disabilities.

Furthermore dressing up is about celebrating. Life is a gift and a celebration. Saving clothes for best does not work, being alive right now that is something to celebrate, that is the special occasion that you have been waiting for. We are gifted with every day, lets dress up and enjoy it!

There are things we need to consider for those of us living (and thriving) with illnesses and imparements including ease of dressing.

Park 2Dressing can be painful and so clothes that are easy to go on are favoured. For some people clothes that are easy for them to fasten if they have limited mobility in their arms and legs and problems with their hands are important. In many cases clothing that does not have to be pulled over one’s head is least painful.

However, this is all circumnavigatable.

Firstly I would suggest that you pick a style, or styles, that you like. Just dream here, we will work out practicalities later.

Next think about the clothing that is easiest and most comfortable for you. These might not match the style yet but bear with me. Now as I am a wheelchair user I need things that are not tight or cutting in at the waist or high cut as they are uncomfortable.

Park 3I also need things that will not leave big wrinkles against my skin to help prevent pressure sores. So I am looking at soft light trousers and skirts and dresses. Great. Before I got sick I lived in jeans, now I am a skirts and dresses girl with organic yoga trousers or leggings under a skirt or dress for winter or for yoga!

Practicalities; it is worth figuring out what you like and what you need and finding a way to reconcile the two. It can just take some creative thinking and remember clothes can be adapted too. So you can get the clothes tailored or altered or do what I do and take scissors to things I need to change!

When shopping pick out the things you know are useful to you. Find style or shop you like and pick from the range the clothes most suitable – for your dreams and your needs – to you.

Park LastIf the company tend to stock them in a certain season then you can just buy all you can then. If you buy online go to the website of your fave companies and go on their mailing lists to be informed of sales. Money, yes, well we know when the sales are at the shops we patronise and we save up for them, if something is on a big discount I will go without something else to by several of them then and put them away for when I need them. Taking care of clothes helps them to last longer.

Charity shops, second hand clothes, put it all together to create your unique look, and this way you can guarantee no one is going to be at the party with the same dress as you! Hand-me-downs can be frugality chic.

I believe that I am worth the money to feel happy and proud and beautiful. People in the street come up to me and stare at my legs and ask if I can ever walk or what is ‘wrong’ with me.

The social workers and so forth told me I was too “limited” and too sick to be of any use to anyone. The news in Britain at the moment is all about the Budget, healthcare and benefit cuts, how much I and other sick people cost the nation and how it could better be spent than just keeping me around etc.

I refuse all this. It is so easy to let it get into your head, to think you are not really worth it and maybe you are just a burden and how can you possibly look nice when you are too sick to wash your face and what’s the point of it all anyway?

I resist that way of thinking every day that I am up and dressed and expressing my creativity, pride, purpose, self worth and self love through my clothes and my style. Existing in a happy, positive state is my resistance to all the prejudice and negativity and today I am decked out in a pink dress and big silver heart necklace, and despite a bad night of pain, I am creating our fabulous day!

Outfit:

Black Vintage Evening Gown and white gloves from Looby Loos, Cardiff

Necklace from charity shop in Forest of Dean

Coat borrow from my very stylish cousin.

Crutches from CoolCrutches.com

Remember you can still buy tickets for the very first Sick Chick to Trail Blazer Conference here. More on wellness, working with illness and living well every.beautiful.day