Sinéad Burke on Making Change a Movement, Not a Moment | BoF VOICES 2021

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2022

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

Four years ago, writer and activist Sinéad Burke made her debut at BoF VOICES, when she implored the fashion community to start designing for disability, noting that the global spending power of disabled people is more than $1.9 trillion. Following a series of high-profile appearances after VOICES 2017 — from Davos to the Met Gala — Burke has been honing her sense of mission and purpose, and has come to the conclusion that creating products for disabled people is not enough.

In her return to the BoF VOICES stage in 2021, she said: “If change is only embedded in the present, change will be a moment, not a movement.”

Burke lays out a path for removing abelism from our society. Systemic change, she said, has to happen based around four pillars: people, places, product and promotions, and be jump-started with awareness, allyship and advocacy.

In short this means “nothing about us, without us.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion.
0:08.6	Welcome to the Bof podcast. It's Friday, April 1st.
0:12.7	About four years ago, the writer and disability advocate, Shnade Burke, made her debut at Bof Voices,
0:19.2	when she implored the fashion community to start designing
0:22.2	for disability, noting that the spending power of disabled people is more than $1.9 trillion.
0:29.7	Then, following a series of high-profile appearances from Davos to the Met Gallagher,
0:35.7	Shanade has been honing her sense of mission and purpose,
0:39.3	and has come to the conclusion that creating products for disabled people is simply not enough.
0:44.4	This was clear in her return to the BOF Voices stage in December 2021.
0:50.3	What we have seen in the last five years is the fashion industry, particularly from a luxury positioning, begin to consider this market.
0:58.0	But what happens when we design an industry for the spending power of a community?
1:04.0	We consider disabled people only as customers, not as colleagues or as co-creators.
1:10.0	We consider them as a population to serve,
1:13.2	but never really to welcome. If change is only embedded in the present, change will be a moment,
1:17.7	not a movement. On the latest episode of the BOF podcast, Chenade lays out a roadmap for removing
1:23.3	ableism from the fashion industry and society at large. Here's Sheneid Burke at B.O.F. Voices
1:30.2	2021. For accessibility reasons, I'd like to begin with a visual description of myself. I'm a
1:37.1	white, cisgendered woman who uses the pronouns, she, her. I have a physical and visible disability.
1:47.8	I have a contrapasia, the most common form of dwarfism.
1:53.6	I stand at the height of three feet, five inches tall. I have brown hair that is typically at the length of my shoulder. Thanks to the pandemic, it's a little longer. I have brown eyes and I'm wearing a
1:59.2	custom Gucci double- or double breasted
2:02.6	tuxedo and some pink velvet fur-gammon shoes.
	...

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