One design firm in Kenya wants to make it even easier for Blind and visually impaired shoppers to style their clothes.
Hisi Studio started as Angela Wanjiku’s senior project at the University of Nairobi, where she studied textile design.
Now, she has a full-fledged label, where textile artists sew beaded Braille patterns and phrases onto shirts, skirts, and more.
One shirt reads: “The less you see the eyes, the more you see the heart.”
In addition to Braille designs, each garment comes with a QR code tag that describes clothing descriptions and care instructions for visually impaired wearers. It utilizes tools like Google Talkback on mobile devices, which reads the information from the scanned QR code back to the user.
And some designs are made specifically to help improve the everyday lives of people who are Blind or visually impaired.
For example, a leather belt bag featured in Hisi Studio’s first two collections was made to help reduce the amount of theft many Blind Kenyans said they faced, with a holster that fits close to the body and allows the wearer to account for all of their belongings.
“I believe fashion plays an important role as a communicator of information in social interactions and as an aid in establishing self-identity,” Wanjiku told Teen Vogue.
“Fashion designers and clothing manufacturers should choose to be intentional about their consideration for disabled consumers.”
Julius Mbura, a visually impaired customer, told The Associated Press that he enjoys being able to know what his T-shirts say “without having to depend on someone else.”
“This is one brand that ensures people who are blind and visually impaired appreciate textile and fashion and clothes that represent who they are and what they are,” Mbura said.
A version of this article was originally published in The 2025 Fashion Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
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Header image courtesy of Hisi Studio/Facebook
