Feeling Fashionable?

I was watching Gok Wan’s How to Look Good Naked this week, and found myself in tears. Whilst not an uncommon reaction to a show that shows women just how good they can feel about themselves, this one was especially heart breaking because the downright fabulous woman on it was completely blind. All her life she had been worrying about how she looked, whether she could remember what looked good together, and feeling that she was hugely fat and unattractive. Through a series of techniques and conversations Gok set out to chain these views and show her what she really looked like, even if she couldn’t see.

He used simple methods – such as letting her feel a cast of her body in comparison to other women, pointing out her beautiful points, teaching her what shapes worked for her body and developing a system whereby she could work out if an article of clothing suited her. By the end she was transformed into someone who glowed with confidence, whilst I sobbed in a corner!

Anyway, it got me to thinking about the systems for dealing with image and self-confidence if you are blind. I know there are makeover charities and similar designed to help women who have been ravaged by cancer, but I am not sure there is anything for people who cannot see what they look like. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to work out daily outfits and be incredibly conscious of others looking out you, without being able to use vision to help. There may be tools that can identify colours, but that it only one step – people would need to know how fabrics combine, what different clothing shapes feel like, and how patterns can work together. Trying to look fashionable must be a terrifying prospect.

 Do you guys think that a charity targeting this area, a fashion consultancy for the blind, would be a good idea?