Fashion That Fits Every Body: Hilary Pham on Adaptive Clothing Innovation
Hilary Pham, Founder and CEO of Equability, joins us to share insights about her company, which specializes in adapting existing clothing for individuals with disabilities. She discusses her journey of starting the company, inspired by her mother's struggles with traditional clothing. We explore how clothing can serve as a form of self-expression and how this service allows for modifications in all clothing brands to better suit the wearer. Hilary’s creative problem-solving and focus on community connection are truly inspiring.
Fashion That Fits Every Body: Hilary Pham on Adaptive Clothing Innovation
All Autism Talk
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Richie Ploesch
Hillary, it's great to have you on. Thanks for joining us today.
Hilary Pham
Thanks for having me.
Richie
I want to hear a whole bunch of things, but I want to first get a little bit of an introduction to your company, Equability. Can you just tell us a little bit about what you do?
Hilary
Sure, so Equability is a clothing adaptation service. We don't make any new clothes. People send their clothes to us and we'll adapt it for them. So we'll add things like magnets, Velcro snap buttons, create openings with zippers, or add closures where people need them. So adapting existing clothes and making them easier to wear.
Richie
That's so great. I love that, right? Making sure that people can access the clothes that they want, but then still modify them to fit and meet their needs, right?
Hilary
Exactly,
Richie
That's great. so this is not, you didn't go to school for this. You didn't this. How did you get into creating equability? Tell us that story and a little bit about your background too, all at once.
Hilary
Absolutely. It's very ironic. I work in tech. I'm a data analyst for the state. This is not my field at all. Very much it was just from watching my mom. So my mom has arthritis and carpal tunnel. She's had it for like 13 plus years at this point. And yeah, and it was just slowly watching her struggle with small buttons, with small zipper, struggle with her jacket zipper, especially in the winter time.
I grew up in the Midwest, so it is cold. Yeah, so I think it was just picking up on kind of the length of time it was taking her to get dressed, kind of watching while she struggled. Then I looked around and I went, I think my mom is struggling with clothes and I think other people might be struggling in the same ways. And so we tried buying it out of clothes, but my mom was like, I wanna keep wearing my favorite jacket. I've had it for 10 years, it fits me too well, I wanna keep wearing that. And I went, okay, I think there has to be something, a new company that needs to exist to fix this problem. So that's how we started, super organically.
Richie
That's amazing. And I'm sure your mom was so appreciative and so proud and so grateful that she gets to keep wearing her favorite jacket. I have a favorite jacket that I will wear until the sleeves fall off, I'm sure. And then it'll be a vest and then I'll just wear it that way. So for her to be able to access that, probably a great moment for her and for you as well.
Hilary
Yeah, it felt very full circle to kind of adapt my mom's clothes, get her reaction to it. Yeah, and I think most of all, was just, I think as people get older and kind of ability and dexterity becomes a little more challenging or if have chronic condition, I think you have to slowly give up independence in small ways that are kind of really difficult to transition with and then kind of get used to. And my mom is super independent. I don't think she knows how to ask us for help. And so it was me going, mom, please give me your jacket, I will fix it for you. And then she went, okay, fine. I had to ask her in summertime too. She wouldn't be tempted to use it. And I was like, you don't need it for three months, just give us your jacket, we'll fix the zipper. Yeah, and so I think clothes for a lot of people have been a really negative experience, especially if they are struggling with these things or they'll wear stretchy clothes like athleisure or sweatpants, but it doesn't make you feel good. So I think being able to wear your clothes or be able to wear like, designs that you really love. I think that is really powerful for people.
Richie
I'm thinking about clothes and I'm thinking about the, the sense of self a little bit, being able to have control over how I dress, what I wear, what I pick, you know, the styles, the fashions, the, like to wear long sleeve shirts, but then roll up the sleeves type thing. That's, that's one of my go-to looks. Right. So to be able to have my own clothes modified is a little bit more empowering than to have a much more limited scope of what's available to me. Right.
Hilary
Exactly. Yeah. And I, I will say the industry has changed so much in the last five years since we got started with Equability. There are so many small companies like Buck & Buck, Silver, Tommy Hilfiger has a line called Tommy Adaptive where they sell shirts with like magnets embedded in them. So there are a bunch of clothing companies that are starting to offer more options. But I do remember very early on in the process of coming up with Equability, I spoke to a girl who was in a wheelchair.
Richie
Mm-hmm.
Hilary
So she kind of had limited options with clothes. She was just about to graduate undergrad and she went, I wanna wear the cute button down shirt dress that everyone else is wearing from Zara right now. Or she was like, I wanna go to the thrift store and buy like some neon flower dress and I wanna be able to wear it. I wanna be able to dress myself. And I went, yeah, there's a level of self-expression. There's a level of like you're conveying your identity and kind of your creativity through your style. And so I wanted to help people with that.
Richie
Yeah. like that term, self-expression conveying your identity. So you mentioned there are other companies that are doing things similar, but how is equability different and what do you do that differentiates you from the other companies?
Hilary
So think all the other companies just sell the clothes with adaptations in it. So you can pick from like button down shirts if you want magnets. I think some of them do snaps or Velcro. I think for people who need very specific changes with their clothes, it's a little more difficult to able to shop from like a pre-adapted selection of clothes. So for example, we work a lot with people who have pacemakers and they don't really like using magnets. By far, magnets would be the easiest for them to use but they don't want to take any chances. And so that's why we offer like Velcro magnet snap buttons for shirts, for example. So they have more options. So I think, yes, it is awesome to be able to go out and buy a white button down shirt with Magatart embedded in them, or it's been designed for people in wheelchairs, for example. So there are things that are changed. But if people need like to have their clothes a little bit more customized to themselves, I think that's where we're a little bit different from everyone else.
Richie
That's so interesting. I didn't even consider somebody with a pacemaker that there may not. It's they can have magnets, right? That's that that presents a health risk for them. So I hadn't even considered that that would be one of the adaptations that you need to do. So you have a few different ways, right? You mentioned Velcro. You mentioned other snaps, right?
Hilary
Yeah. And I think it's funny. like, magnets are by far the easiest, but if you're going to be moving around a lot, that gets can come open if you like move really suddenly. Uh, so we've offered like snap buttons too. So we say, so we go to the person and say, Hey, based on your level of dexterity, this is what we recommend. But if you want something very, very secure to the snaps, if you want to think, if you don't care about that and you're just going to be sitting all day and sure that's kind of a little big, so it won't snap open, do the magnets.
Richie
Yeah.
Hilary
So different options to meet different lifestyles and dexterity levels.
Richie
So creative, I love it. And I'm just envisioning, you I've had some students in the past that have used magnets and you're right, like they couldn't necessarily button the buttons, right? I had a student that I used to work with who had muscular dystrophy and he couldn't button the buttons and so he would kind of just hold the magnets close and then they would snap and it was easy. But you're right, when he would go out for PE or other activities,
Hilary
Thanks.
Richie
it would sometimes come on button and he was able to fix it and corrected himself. But I'm just imagining what that would be like and how that moment would feel if I was in a work meeting or if I was in class or if I was in a job interview or anything like that. And to have the other options, I think gives me a little bit more of a sense of security. want to say.
Hilary
Exactly. Absolutely, yeah. And I think so too, we've been talking a lot about button down shirts before jeans, for example. We can change the twist top button. We'll move it to the front so it always looks buttoned and looks totally normal still. But it can be, we've done like a hook, a big square Velcro, a big snap button. We can change the fly to like snaps or Velcro too. Some people only struggle with the button. They can do the zipper. So we'll only change that. Or if they want just the fly change, if they want to keep the twist top button, we can do that as well. So I don't think there's like that-
Richie
Yeah, mhm.
Hilary
-level of customization really anywhere else too.
Richie
Yeah, it's not one size fits all. It's what do we need to do for this individual and how do we make it work for them so that they can move around their world and express themselves through clothing? Tell me a little bit. I mean, we talked a little bit about pants and shirts, but you also mentioned jackets. Is that another thing that you can adapt?
Hilary
Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so for jackets we can remove the old zipper and replace it with one that's called MagZip. It's by this really cool company called Ankiir. Scott, the guy who founded it, his uncle had a stroke so he made a zipper that has magnets at the bottom. They just snap together and you zip it like normal. So you can zip your jacket with one hand. And so it doesn't, you don't have to like align anything at the bottom of the jacket. For us it's pretty easy. We're just removing the old one, adding a new one. So yes, for anyone who struggles with starting jackets or that level of dexterity, There's an option for -
Richie
That's amazing. And so we talked about this a little bit, but I want us to dive into this a little bit more. Why are clothes so important for each of us? know we kind of touched on it as like an ability for us to express ourselves, but what else is there to us having our own clothes and choosing our own clothes?
Hilary
-Absolutely. It's funny, one thing that I, if I ever have an important meeting with Equability, I usually will show up in like jeans or leggings and a t-shirt. I'm surrounded by people in business professional clothing and then I'll bring a button down shirt dress with magnets in it and I'll put it on in front of them and go, what did you think of me before I put on this button down shirt now that I look professional? And what thoughts were going through your head when you saw me in those clothes versus the clothes I'm wearing now?
Richie
Okay.
Hilary
So think as much as we like to say that like clothes don't really matter, they do matter. I think people can make a lot of judgments about you or they can be a way to express yourself, but also they're how people see you for the very first time. Like that is the first impression that someone gets of you is how are you dressed? What's your appearance like? So I think yes, clothes are fantastic for the individual. I use clothes in a very positive way where from having a bad day, I'll wear something bright or colorful, or if I feel If I want to feel more productive, I can just put on something else besides pajamas or athleisure and feel a little bit more put together for that day. But yes, they are an outward way for people to notice us, kind of notice our appearance and really are important for that first impression.
Richie
That moment I bet is a really powerful one where you go from athleisure to a button down shirt and more professional tire in a moment, right? What are some reactions that you get?
Hilary
Yeah, it is funny. Yeah, one of the, I was at a pitch competition recently and there were a bunch of judges there with little sheet of paper and I guess presentation was one of their categories. And afterwards she came up to me and she went, you know, I'm really glad that you said that you were gonna change your clothes on stage because when you first walked up in like leggings and a t-shirt, I was gonna dock you points at presentation. And I went, well, that's, yeah. And I went, well, that's pretty much the point. Yeah, why I do that.
Richie
really? That's exactly the point. Sorry, I cut you off. That's exactly the point.
Hilary
Yeah. Exactly.
Richie
Yeah, wow. How did that pitch meeting go? I'm just curious.
Hilary
It went well. we, was for the Governor's Business Plan competition in Wisconsin, and we placed first in the Business Services category. Yay!
Richie
That's amazing, congratulations. That's super great. Yeah, you should be. You should be excited and proud too. That's not a small feat. I'm thinking about the long-term vision for this. You guys are in Wisconsin, you mentioned, and people can mail in clothes for you, to you, mail in clothes to have them adapted and you mail them back or ship them back. Tell us a little bit about the long-term vision.
Hilary
Thanks, I'm really excited about it.
Richie
for your company and how those things may change or may not change.
Hilary
Sure, absolutely. So right now, we're very most focused on business to consumer, so B2C. So people are mailing their clothes to us, we adapt them, we send them back to them. I think when I first started this company, I was thinking about what true accessibility and inclusion looks like. And I was like, yeah, it's nice for us to have a better adaptive selection to shop from, or they can mail the things into to equability, that we can adapt them.
But I think about people who are starting their first job and they have to go buy professional clothes for the first time. It is kind of a pain in the butt to buy them separately, mail them to us, choose the stuff, wait an extra three weeks to get their clothes. So I think my biggest dream, this is the pie in the sky long-term vision. I would love to partner with companies like Gap, like Duluth Trading. They're in Wisconsin, they're nearby, or like Levi.
Richie
Yeah.
Hilary
where if people go onto their website, can choose, right now they can choose, ship to home, ship to store. It would be awesome if it could be a third option where it said ship to equability. And then if you chose that, it would do a pop-up to our screen where it'd say, Hey, you're doing, you're ordering a button down shirt. Do you want magnets, Velcro snaps? And do you want all the buttons or leave the top one undone? and so the clothes would automatically be sent from whatever retailer would be to our facility. And then we'd send it back to the person. Cause I think in that way,
You get to shop from truly anywhere, like any store. You don't have to do extra steps. I feel like people with dexterity or mobility issues have enough hoops to jump through. They have too many appointments. They have way too many boxes to check. They have so much to do already. Why not take a step of mailing the clothes to us out of the way and embed ourselves within companies?
Richie
I'm thinking about getting a box. I did this the other day. Get something from Amazon. Now I need to go and get it. The pants I got were too long. I need to go get them hand and fitted and other things. And so essentially by me going shopping, I'm just giving myself more to do less. And what you're talking about is, is taking that piece out so that they don't, there's not one more thing to do. You know, it's going to come to you and you also don't have to plan a month in advance because you have to plan for
Hilary
Exactly.
Richie
the shipping time from the clothing company to me, then the shipping time back to you, then the shipping time again, like instead of it being three times, it cuts that out. So then you can plan for the job interview that's a couple of weeks away as opposed to the one that's two months from now.
Hilary
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And I think for the companies too, I feel like lot of companies like Target came out with a line of adaptive clothes for kids named Ken Jack. So I think there are a lot of companies trying. I think developing an adaptive line is super expensive for those companies. They have to train new people how to sew them in a certain way, create new designs. have to R &D it, you to figure out the process. So I think for companies that kind of want to be more inclusive, but maybe that barrier to end to create their own adaptive line is really high for them. This would be a great option too, to just expand the options for people with disabilities, but also make it work with what they're doing already. So try to make it easier for everyone.
Richie
Yeah, and some of those. Right, some of those companies I know that they they essentially make their money on the economies of scale, right? Instead of making one shirt, we make 10,000 and then we can sell them cheaper, right? But they may not necessarily make 10,000 of these. And so what's a way for them to bridge that gap and still be a part of the community and still support individuals who need that help? Right? So in all of this, I imagine that you have a very close relationship with your customers.
Hilary
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Richie
Right, just from the nature of the communication and those things. What are some stories that have stood out to you in particular over the last, what'd you say, five years?
Hilary
Absolutely. Yeah. So we officially launched about a year and a half ago. So very new still. We'll do kind of the standard things that I've talked to you about so far, like the jacket zippers, the button down shirts, the jeans, but we do custom orders too. So there's a gentleman named Nick who lives like a mile away from me in Madison, Wisconsin. He is in a wheelchair. He has an abdominal belt. So he originally asked us to open on both sides of shirts and sweaters like a two inch hole on both sides of the shirt so he can thread his belt through his clothes and not have it go over or like make his clothes bunch up from the bottom in strange ways.
So you can just thread it through and it looks very hidden. And it's funny. So from there, it kind of graduated into like, hey, can you change this about my jeans where like, can you make the back a little bit higher? I need to be able to close something over the edge of my ankle. Can you install like a magnet at the bottom of the pants with like a six inch opening so it could just snap together in clothes, I can put my shoes on. So I think it was, those custom orders are one, a lot of fun, because I work with two women who do the sewing and they love a challenge. And so we'll just sit down, kind of listen to what they're saying and go, what can we do? What are ways that we've done before or materials that we can use that would make things easier for you? So those custom orders, I always get to talk to the people. I always get to understand exactly what the challenge is and then we figure things out. So I think those are a lot of fun, those custom orders.
Richie
I'm hearing a deep sense of connection to the community from you, right? It's not just someone sends in an order and they say, I want these to be Velcro instead. Like I'm hearing a true connection from you and your team to the customer, right? And so I imagine that there are ways that you can make adaptations or suggestions that maybe hadn't even been considered or vice versa, right? It's a mutually creative process.
Hilary
Exactly. Yeah, and it's interesting. Some people just want to look normal, you know? Like they just want their shirt to look the same as it was. And so we figured out ways, especially for some custom orders and for like button-down shirts, for example, we'll sew over the existing seam lines. Or last year we did an order for women with dementia. Her husband was the primary caregiver and actually it was her adult son that placed the order with us where he lives out of town and he went, I don't know how to help. Maybe you guys can make some of the clothes easier. That's how I can help from a distance.
And so what we did, because she wasn't wearing button down shirts or jeans, her husband was essentially dressing her in two t-shirts that she would tolerate. And he went, her head just gets stuck. We don't know what to do. And so Grace and I, one of my sewists, sat down and we went, what if we just added zippers to the seam of the t-shirt? So it's kind of hidden where it's like the existing seam of the shirt, where he can just unzip, he gets it on, and then he can zip it back up. So those sorts of things were for people who want to keep looking as normal as they were before, where they can maintain the integrity of their shirt and the pants and the jacket. We can do that and do that in ways that we can hide what's been done. I think that's been a challenge to get around, but cool to figure it out.
Richie
Super fascinating, super fascinating. Hillary, how can people get involved and how can they find your company?
Hilary
So to find us, you just Google us, we're all online, we're completely remote. I'm based in Madison, Wisconsin, but we ship nationwide. I'm always thinking about how to make things more accessible. And so one of the things that I've been brainstorming about like crazy has been how do I reduce shipping? Because we have two-way shipping. That's like, I don't know if you've mailed anything recently, but that's like 15 to $20 right off the bat. So what I've been trying to do is reach out to nonprofits in areas.
So actually in Madison, Wisconsin, we have our first drop off location. It's on the East side. It's at this amazing place called Common Threads Family Resource Center where they do a lot of therapeutic services. So we've partnered with them where anyone in Madison can, or in the surrounding area, could place an order, drop it off there. If I'm local, I can just go pick it up. So we don't have that shipping costs and I can reduce costs by 20, 30 % for people. So that's one of my goals where I would love to have like, I don't know, two locations in Chicago. That's where I grew up where one on the north side, one on the south side, people just drop other orders off there. I can teach them how to bundle orders together. even if it's not, even if I'm not able to pick it up, we can still like ship three orders together, for example, and save on the shipping costs versus three separate people mailing things. So yes, I'm trying to build out a drop-off network nationwide. We'll see how that goes. But that would be my short-term vision of the next year or two.
Richie
I'm so impressed with your ability to just say, here's a problem. Let me think of a creative solution. I guess we could do this. And I didn't even consider a drop off box, but you're right. If I have to spend, you know, 30 % or whatever it is to get it to you and to get it back. Now both sides are adding a cost and that may be prohibitive for some people that may not, that may be the barrier to entry. And so to have a creative solution like this means more people could access it, which means more people are-
Hilary
Exactly.
Richie
-like expressing themselves through clothing.
Hilary
Yeah, and I know a lot of people have mentioned to me too, they were like, if people are struggling with dexterity, how are they going to like package something up and send it to you? And I went, that's a good point. And so I think I've met so many incredible people doing this, where I talk to, I work a lot with like OTs, PTs. I've met with a lot of disability resource centers and nonprofits. And whenever I explain to people what we're doing, they get really fired up. But they were like, this is great. Like we should, so I think, I think one, It's been amazing to see how supportive everyone is. And two, a lot of these nonprofits were like, yeah, how can we help you? Or we've worked with a lot of senior centers in the area where those seniors are going there anyway, or for like rehab facilities, they're going there anyway for their appointments. Why not be able to bring their clothes with them instead of having to wrap things on their own or get someone else to help them to ship this package? Yeah. So I think it's been incredible how supportive the community has been to let me have all these creative ideas and actually follow through on some of them, which has been nice.
Richie
And it's not even I'm also just smiling because this is like a part of what you do as a human, right? You still have a whole other career and you still have a whole other life outside of this. I just think that. I appreciate that from you, right? Yeah, that's all. So if people want to be a part of the organization, can they reach out to you via their website? Is that the best way for them to get involved?
Hilary
Yeah. Thanks. Absolutely. So our website has an email address. It also has a contact for, both of those would go to me. I'm essentially the only person who manages all those accounts. So you can DM us on Instagram. You can email me, you can text me any of those ways. Yeah. And if anyone is interested in, oh, we are looking for models. Cause I think one of the biggest issues I've noticed is there is a trust issue that people will have with us.
Richie
Yeah.
Hilary
How many people are gonna send their favorite pair of jeans to some online company that's never heard about? Very few people, I've found out. And so I think one of the things I've been trying to do is getting a lot of our clothes on people. So we've like parted with some disability influencers and like adapted their clothes for free in exchange for likes of videos and pictures. So it's actually on them. You can see how they wear, like especially the magnets, you can see how they could like walk around and things are fine. So if anyone has dexterity or mobility issues and wants to model some of our clothes in exchange for some free adaptations, let us know. And if anyone has connections to nonprofits who would love to be drop off locations for us, also reach out. That'd be awesome.
Richie
That's great and we'll make sure that people can find your websites and other things in our show notes will put that in there. Yeah, of course. Hillary, is there anything else that you would like to share with us about equability and about what's next for the organization?
Hilary
appreciate that, thanks. Sure, I would love to share our mission. I'm really proud of it because I came up with it. It's, we change clothes so you can too. We adapt clothes to match your lifestyle and clothing style, no matter what stage of life you're in.
Richie
Yes, please.
Hilary
really proud of that. Thanks.
Richie
That is super catchy. That's great. You should be proud of it. You should be proud of this whole thing. mean, this is, think, our, know, if there's one thing I've learned throughout all the episodes that we've done in this podcast, it's that there are, there are more, there are more things that people need support with than they're getting support with right now in this moment. And the more people take an entrepreneurial spirit and the more they identify those challenges and work to solve them, the better off the community as a whole will be.
And so just an appreciation to you and to others who have followed in similar paths. Yeah, do it, try it, see what happens. I don't know. I think it's just so important for us to do it. And the more we do, the better we are and the more we'll learn. And that'll be better for our community as a whole. So thank you.
Hilary
Thanks so much, and I really appreciate you having us on here.
Richie
Of course, happy to have you back as things develop.
Hilary
Absolutely.
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