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Zalando launches first Adaptive Fashion collections embracing the disabled community

October 19, 2022
Fashion
Three interacting young people in a living room scenario; one with a leg brace, one in a wheelchair
  • As part of commitment to inclusive fashion, Zalando launches its first adaptive collection across private labels: Zign, Pier One, Anna Field, Yourturn and Even&Odd in 25 markets
  • Zalando is also adding the Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive collection to its offering in 9 markets
  • A dedicated landing page and accompanying marketing campaign aim to help customers discover and shop adaptive fashion on Zalando, with further improvements in customer experience planned in the next months

BERLIN, OCTOBER 19, 2022 // Zalando, a leading European online platform for fashion and lifestyle, launches its first adaptive fashion collection consisting of more than 140 styles across its private labels: Zign, Pier One, Anna Field, Yourturn and Even&Odd. Adaptive fashion is clothing, footwear and accessories catering to the needs of disabled people1, intentionally designed to be accessible for people living with permanent or temporary impairments. Available in all Zalando markets, the collection includes women’s and men’s clothing as well as footwear, and is part of the company’s commitment to providing a truly inclusive assortment and experience for underrepresented groups by 2025.

In parallel, Zalando adds the Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive collection to its offering across nine markets, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland. Over 130 styles across menswear, womenswear and kidswear will become available on Zalando, with the first products already live. Tommy Hilfiger is a global lifestyle brand that since 2017 has consistently invested in and produced adaptive fashion, making it an ideal brand to add to the offering as Zalando embarks on its own adaptive journey.

According to the WHO, about one in five Europeans live with some form of a disability. With the launch of adaptive fashion, Zalando wants to make a first step and address disabled persons living with impairments of different kinds such as limited mobility and limited dexterity, as well as sensory sensitivity. It also addresses caregivers of kids with disabilities. Styles in the first collections include seated designs for wheelchair use, sensory-friendly fabrications, pieces with easy closures and styles that accomodate prosthetics or bandages. Prior to launching the collections, Zalando conducted extensive qualitative and quantitative customer research across several markets to better understand the experience and needs of disabled customers.

Portrait of Sara Diez looking into the camera
Zalando SE

Sara Diez, VP Category Women and Private Labels at Zalando, says: “Our vision is to be the Starting Point for Fashion that is welcoming to everyone. We see a gap in the fashion market — finding fashionable adaptive clothing still represents a challenge for disabled people. By launching adaptive collections under our Private Labels and introducing the Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive collection to our customers, we hope to contribute to solving this challenge and offer a varied selection of stylish adaptive fashion across price and size in one place. We want to learn from the disabled community and inspire our partners, so that together we can continue building a delightful experience for our disabled customers and making fashion even more inclusive”.

Portrait of Grace Stratton looking at the camera

Throughout the creation and design of the Private Labels collection, Zalando has been working with the creative agency All is for All, which specializes in helping brands be truly inclusive and accessible for disabled people. Grace Stratton, Director at All is for All, says: "Beyond its functional impacts, disability is a community, a shared lived experience, something to be understood, appreciated more deeply by non-disabled people and embraced. We supported Zalando as partners through this entire journey and in designing the positioning and messaging of this campaign. We are so proud of the way it portrays disabled people and are grateful for Zalando's authentic partnership with us.”

To help disabled people discover, browse and shop Zalando’s adaptive fashion assortment, Zalando launches an adaptive fashion hub, dedicated adaptive collection pages and a flag for identifying adaptive styles. Also here, Zalando was supported and consulted by All is for All throughout the process of developing the customer experience and marketing activation. In order to raise awareness of adaptive fashion, Zalando launches a dedicated marketing campaign “Embrace what makes you, you” representing voices from the disabled community and featuring content created by disabled talent. An accompanying marketing campaign has been created by Zalando Marketing Services (ZMS) for the Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive collection.

Zalando will continue listening to and learning from the disabled community in the next months, in order to further improve the experience of finding and shopping adaptive fashion for customers.

1Zalando intentionally chose to use "disability-first" language when referring to the disabled community, based on collaboration with disability-led consultancy All is for All and extensive customer research. We acknowledge that "people-first" language (such as “people with disabilities”) is also commonly used.

Zalando SE Boiler Plate EN

About Zalando

Founded in Berlin in 2008, Zalando is Europe’s leading online multi-brand fashion destination. We are building a pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce, along two growth vectors: Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B). In B2C, we provide an inspiring, high-quality multi-brand shopping experience for fashion and lifestyle products to more than 50 million active customers across 25 markets. In B2B, we leverage our logistics infrastructure, software, and service capabilities to support brands and retailers in managing and scaling their entire e-commerce business, both on and off the Zalando platform. Through our ecosystem vision, Zalando aims to enable positive change in the fashion and lifestyle industry.