Key Highlights
- “The skirt is emerald green in colour with black panels on the side and it is designed to be very fitted on the body.” Lo is speaking to a group of six guests ahead of his London fashion week show, offering them a sneak preview of his new collection that will shortly be unveiled on the catwalk.
- Chet Lo shows his Night Market collection at the Mandarin Oriental hotel at London fashion week Chet Lo shows the fabrics and explains the garments to guests in a touch tour ahead of London fashion week The group stands huddled around Lo, listening intently as he talks them through each piece, pausing to pass around everything from jackets featuring spiky back panels to clingy knitted dresses.
- The opportunity to feel each piece is crucial for the group standing in front of Lo: each person has low vision or is blind. This “touch tour” has been organised by Making Fashion Accessible, an initiative from the non-profit Hair & Care founded by the celebrity hairstylist Anna Cofone in 2019, which aims to foster more inclusivity in the fashion and beauty industries.
- Guests examine and feel the fabrics during the touch tour After the tour, guests are invited to sit front row at Lo’s show where they are presented with a pair of headphones that allow them to listen to audio descriptions of each look on the catwalk alongside a booklet featuring samples of the fabrics used in each piece.“I am fully blind so I got so much out of it,” says Jane Manley, who works as a data analyst at the Royal National Institute of Blind People.
- “As someone with no usable sight, I am all about feeling the energy in the room and hearing people ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing’ as a model walks by.
