to the problem that started everything, clothes were supposed to help people get dressed and too often fashion asks them to adapt instead. Rogers and Clegg met as occupational therapy students and both worked as disability support workers, with Clegg supporting Maddie and Rogers supporting Jack. Both were full-time wheelchair users who relied on others to help them dress. “We always used to talk about how dressing was a real difficulty, it was really time-consuming,” Clegg recalled. When the pair investigated adaptive clothing, Australian options largely targeted older people or children, with functionality given primacy over fashion. Their OT training taught them that when a task resists adaptation, change the equipment. In this case, the equipment was a wardrobe — and JAM had its premise. 1 in 5 people “Around 1 in 5 people in Australia identify as living with disability,” Rogers told Inside Retail, adding that adaptive design can also help breastfeeding mothers, people receiving medical treatment and recovering from injury. JAM earned mainstream recognition early when The Iconic picked up the label in 2021 as one of three brands in its adaptive edit. The brand also appeared at Melbourne Fashion Week and Melbourne Fashion Festival from 2022-2024. Extending from clothes, the pair lectured at universities, spoke at expos and panels and offered free professional-development sessions to companies. Rogers remembers the pleasure in that labour, in particular, a 2022 pop-up where a customer inside the change room exclaimed “WOW!” as a magnetic linen shirt clicked together. “It was honestly such a privilege to be pioneers in this space in Australia,” she said. The economics of access Adaptive fashion has accumulated plenty of applause but still lacks fundamental commercial support. The shared challenge between all specialist founders is they are also being asked to build and educate the market that is supposed to sustain them. When The Iconic launched its Adaptive Edit in 2021, it carried more than 130 pieces from JAM, Christina Stephens and Tommy Hilfiger, but five years later, the assortment has narrowed substantially. Canada’s IZ Adaptive closed in 2016 after founder Izzy Camilleri found that selling directly to customers made scale difficult and retailers scarcely knew where to put the category. The brands manufacturing process and development process are far longer than a lot of other fashion brands. When making the garments, Rogers said extra difficulty usually appeared during sampling. “Things like the direction of a zip or strength of a magnet can impact functionality and you don’t know properly until it’s been sampled and tested,” she said. A manufacturer once emailed about a JAM design under the subject line “very unusual pants”, a joke which masked a costly problem. Clegg once observed that products made for the disability community could become expensive simply because they were specialised, “they add three zeros to it.” JAM consulted people with lived experience and tried to keep pricing within reach, while the NDIS later recognised Adaptive Clothing on its Supports List under Assistive Products for Personal Care and Safety. Physical retail posed another hurdle. Rogers recalled squeezing through shopping-centre aisles with Jack, and to find a change-room with a door way wide enough for most powered wheelchairs was rare. At The Glen in Melbourne, they happened upon a change room with a doorway wide enough for most powered wheelchairs – it was a discovery that helped furnish JAM’s first pop-up retail experience in November 2022. Who carries it next? Rogers emphasised adaptive fashion needs more support from mainstream retail. “The bigger brands have the visibility and scale to properly educate the market,” she said, citing Primark in the UK. Rogers is already planning an organisation focused on disability inclusion in mainstream fashion, taking what she learned at JAM into consultation and advocacy. Eight years of work have left her with a larger ambition to make accessible design ordinary enough that the next founder spends more time selling clothes.