Wheelchair Fashion

I was in a doctor's office reading O Magazine a couple of weeks ago and ran across this story:

Apparel for People with Physical Challenges.

On some level, it's nothing special: a reader recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, who will be using a wheelchair, writes in for advice on what to wear that will be comfortable and stylish, and Adam Glassman gives her advice. On another, though, it was totally eye-opening for me. I have friends and relatives who use wheelchairs, and they care what they look like. I also have my own very limited experience of using wheelchairs, during a pregnancy-related disability, and although on one level I was too preoccupied with being pregnant, disabled, and in pain to care what I looked like, on another level I was more self-conscious than I'd ever been before. There's an extra level of scrutiny you endure when you're sitting in a wheelchair, but it's a weird one. On the one hand, it feels like everyone's trying to figure out what you "did" to get to where you're using a wheelchair (and, strangely, whether you "deserve" a wheelchair, like when people assess how "handicapped" the person using the "handicapped" parking space is). On the other, it feels like you're outside the normal bounds of what's physically attractive.

So of course if you found out you'd be using a wheelchair regularly, wouldn't you, like anyone else, want a wardrobe that was comfortable and user-friendly for your particular situation and that was also really flattering? Why don't we see people talking about this sort of thing more? Are there disabled people on those "makeover" reality shows? (That's a real question; I haven't watched them.)

It's one of those things that's illuminating precisely because it's so obvious that it makes you wonder why it's been invisible. And then it makes you realize how broad and deep invisibility is in our culture.