“My mom became disabled about 10 years ago, and for the first time, she couldn’t get her clothing on – especially bras and underwear,” says Emma Butler, the CEO and founder of Liberare, an adaptive underwear brand with a mission to make change in the fashion industry. “She previously had a beautiful collection of lingerie but, since her dexterity and mobility completely changed in her 40s, her only lingerie options became medical and quite ugly looking. I watched her confidence plummet.”
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In the aftermath of this seismic change, Butler witnessed her mother struggling to get her mojo back, and after heading to university, she met other women suffering with disabilities. “I learned that over 600 million women worldwide have some sort of disability that affects the way they dress,” she adds, adding that she quickly discovered how few options there were for women who couldn’t dress independently or easily.
Resolving to rectify this, Butler set to work creating Liberare, her adaptive underwear brand. The word “liberare” means “to free or liberate” in Latin, and represents the brand’s aim to free disabled people from painful or uncomfortable dressing experiences, via functional garments that make getting ready for their day that much easier. On a quest to empower disabled women and offer an inclusive experience, Liberare is one of the first brands to offer adaptive underwear that is chic, as well as functional. It looks set to be the first of many: The adaptive apparel industry is tipped to be worth $400 billion by 2026.
Liberare bras (the Plunge Bralette and Liberare bra) are front opening and utilise two different types of strong (but lightweight) magnets to fasten. “Hooks and eyes are especially hard for folks with limited dexterity,” says Butler. “We wanted to do magnets, but realised that the pinching motion of putting magnets together can also be difficult for a lot of folks, so we added loop grips. You can slip a finger in if you have a prosthetic arm, for example, and easily glide the fabric together, where it will stay put.”
As for briefs, they created side-opening knickers to allow wheelchair users or those with limited shoulder mobility to easily slip the garment underneath them and fasten on both sides. “One of our styles is velcro, and the other is magnetic, which allows for adjustability,” Butler says. They also offer side-opening pyjama sets, which she says have proven extremely popular.
You can buy Liberare’s game-changing underwear now, but Butler and her team (which includes a number of disabled members of staff) also aim to licence the technology to bigger brands, to help them enter the space. “I don’t think we’re going to see any societal or systemic changes in the fashion industry until every brand has an adaptive line in the same way they have maternity and plus-size brands,” she points out.
“Our entire brand revolves around amplifying disabled voices, but it’s also about easier dressing. I mean, it is 2022 and my mom and other disabled women still have to fumble with hooks and eyes and buttons. We can send a man to the moon, so why has a bra not been redesigned in 100 years?”
