Five Ways Fashion Runways Are Celebrating Disabled Models

When Le Thi Dien rolled her wheelchair onto the runway at Vietnam's National Fine Arts Museum in August, she was making history. The country's first Disability Fashion Show featured over 50 models with various disabilities wearing custom-designed clothes, and for Dien, it felt impossible until it happened.

"This program has helped me, and many fellow people with disabilities, gain confidence and motivation to continue pursuing what we love and live meaningfully," she told reporters. It was exactly the kind of transformation April Lockhart envisioned when she founded Disabled&, a creative community platforming disabled models and creators year-round.

Lockhart, who has a limb difference from amniotic band syndrome, remembers the first time she was in a room with more than two other disabled people in September 2023. The 30-year-old couldn't shake the feeling that disabled models deserved more than token appearances at fashion events.

Her work is part of a growing movement transforming runways into spaces that celebrate all bodies. Jack Eyers has been leading this charge for nearly a decade, becoming the first disabled man to walk in New York Fashion Week in 2015 and the first amputee crowned Mr. England three years later.

After winning a silver medal for paracanoeing at the 2024 Paralympics, Eyers reflected on how far he's come from the teenager who covered up his prosthetic leg out of embarrassment. "It made me think about why I was really doing it," he said, "to inspire others to like who you are, regardless of how you look or sound."

The Ripple Effect

These runway moments are creating change beyond fashion. At Virginia Tech, graduating student Karlee Angel combined her love for design and animals by organizing The Struttin' for PAWS adoption fashion show, where classmates designed "adopt me" vests for shelter dogs. The event supports the Montgomery County Animal Care and Adoption Center while giving future designers a chance to create with purpose.

Meanwhile, at Willamette University's Pacific Northwest College of Art, Professor David Eckard has spent 15 years teaching freshmen about sustainable design through his Cardboard Couture assignment. Students create entire runway looks from cardboard, learning that creativity doesn't require expensive materials.

The fashion industry built itself on exclusion, but these designers, models, and students are rebuilding it with kindness.