The proverb “clothes make the man”, that is, people will judge you by the clothes you wear, has quite an impressive literary pedigree – from Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ in 8 B.C. to William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ in 1600, to Mark Twain in the late 1800s – the importance of making a good impression by way of your attire has been around for a long time.

Although we learn from a young age that what we wear affects how others perceive us, our garments are not just about others’ perceptions of us; clothes can also subconsciously influence how we feel about ourselves.

There have been numerous studies on how much clothes form part of our identity with researchers having recently coined the term “enclothed cognition” to describe the impact that clothes can have on mood and health. A 2012 study found that people randomly assigned to wear white “doctor’s coats” did significantly better on cognitive tests than people not wearing the lab coats.

If clothing affects how other people perceive us and how we think about ourselves, what happens when we are limited in our choice of clothes because those clothes are difficult or impossible to put on, or getting dressed independently is challenging?

Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about getting dressed. Sure, we might care about our style, but the actual process of putting on clothes – pants one leg at a time, button through the buttonhole – is an automatic function.

But imagine having coordination or strength issues, how do you pull up a zip? Or how do you put shoes on prosthetic legs? People with disabilities and the elderly often have to compromise on wearing certain garments and shoes and have had to improvise, modifying garments to make them accessible. But now, things are slowly changing thanks to innovation and the emphasis on inclusivity in the fashion industry, with adaptive clothing.

Adaptive clothing is clothing designed for people with disabilities, the elderly, and people who may have difficulty dressing due to a lack of mobility or an inability to manipulate closures, such as buttons, zips, or shoelaces. It’s also for people with sensory issues who are sensitive to certain textures and materials.

Adaptive apparel makes it easier for people to dress independently with garments that use different features such as Velcro closures, one-handed zips, and magnetic buttons to make dressing simpler, while still having the outward appearance of typical clothing. Adaptive attire allows people with disabilities and the elderly more freedom to wear the clothes they want to wear and express themselves through fashion.

Here are some companies at the intersection of adaptive clothing technology and on-trend fashion that don’t sacrifice fashion in the name of accessibility: