This Lady Designs Adaptive Clothing For People With Disabilities

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When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This is what Suomita Basu did. When psoriatic arthritis got the better of her affecting over 80% of her mobility, and she had to give up her work and career because of this chronic illness, she decided to start a brand of her own. And thus was born Zyenika, a range of adaptive and inclusive clothing for those with disabilities and physical challenges who found dressing up difficult or needed assistance.

“Zyenika is a house of trendy, fashionable, and functional clothing which is easy to wear, and comfortable. My aim was to increase the independence and dignity in dressing”, says Soumita who is based in Kolkata.

The clothing industry does not cater to this section of people in society. Chronic pain sufferers, people with physical disabilities, senior citizens, autistic people can find it difficult to dress up or maybe semi or totally dependent on a caregiver. Being wheelchair-bound or bed-bound can also mean that wearing regular clothes is a challenge. But this should not mean having to wear boring ill-fitting clothes. When her own illness progressed, Soumita found it more and more difficult to manage on her own.

“My wardrobe discouraged me from meeting people or even getting on a video call. Missing my cousin’s wedding became the turning point: I refused to be locked in anymore. And I refused to dress in pain every single day”, she reminisces.

“A person with physical challenges knows how difficult or cumbersome and even painful something as basic and necessary as clothing can be. These challenges may be mild, moderate, or severe”, says Soumita who is a wheelchair user herself. But she feels that this should not compromise on the sense of dressing or fashion. “Your style and dressing speak volumes about you. It defines you. It’s a form of expression of who you are. When you are deprived of that it can lead you feeling low, sad, depressed and that doesn’t help any more than what you are going through already”. Soumita wants to empower them with the freedom to choose and wear what they want to by providing them with a label of bespoke wear because why not?!

Uniquely designed traditional men’s kurta, with no buttons or fasteners

After enough research, identifying a vacuum in the market for inclusive wear, and her own body for trials, Zyenika was born. It sure hasn’t been easy but Soumita is happy with the support and response she has received. A wrap-up saree which can be worn lying down, a kurta without buttons, pre draped sarees which can be worn effortlessly, and adaptive innerwear for men and women are the kind of clothes she is working on.

Sourcing the fabric, conceptualizing the designs, explaining it to the tailoring team, and overlooking the execution are all done by her. With no formal training in this industry, Soumita is self-taught and spent a lot of time learning the art and the trade. Not having formal training also came as a blessing because that gives her a space to think outside of the norms and comfort zone of the art form and that’s where most of her designs come from.

Easy to slip on top made with handloom cotton, No need to raise arms easy for poor grip/low fine motor skills

“It’s important to have that space where one is not told to ‘adjust’. When people ask me, “is it possible to design that way?” Yes, it is. It’s always possible to be thoughtful. That’s all it takes for good design, I say”. Adapting to the challenges of Cerebral Palsy for a customer, the clothing Soumita designed has many hidden features like a knee pad to support her when she crawls with the zips on both sides of the palazzo to transform it to shorts for easier wear and washroom use.

Also, Soumita wants to make sure that her team at Zyenika involves the deserving section of the society, and hence it is a women-led organization. “We strive to have a more inclusive team and ensure more dignified livelihood opportunities for marginalized sections of the society as our suppliers and workers. We are supported by GIAN (Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network), Ahmedabad at the ideation stage.”

Zyenika is also conscious about not adding to the landfill and believes in reusing and recycling. “Give us your old clothes and we will create your new restyled clothes”, says Soumita.

For Soumita, Zyenika is more than a brand or a vocation. It’s her desire to move forward in life despite her disability. It is her hope and wish that she is greater than that and no matter however small her effort may be today, she is consciously making an effort to better someone’s life and that feeling is not a small one.

Zyenika clothing is available at zyenika.com

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Introducing Balaji, one of the strongest voices in the LGBT community in India, who went through and overcome many adversities. Now they are a TEDx speaker, and an influencer outreach professional and recently starting an IGTV talk series called #LetsEducate where people from their community are encouraged and motivated to embrace their identity. Their story is not for the faint-hearted but made it easier for me to endure as their attitude had spice, sass, and a whole lot of strength.

Early Years

Balaji, being a Palakkad Iyer brought up in Kolkata, had quite a childhood filled with uncomfortable situations. Being a sexual abuse survivor by the age of 8-9, being lured by chocolate and candy was abused by a grown man. Finally, after realizing what was happening, their strength took over as they took to themselves to push them away.

After that ordeal having realized that they were gay by the age of 10, which is quite early by Indian standards, lived in the closet till they went to college. Also endured a lot of bullying through this time often being called names and insults on a normal basis.

College Life & Struggles

Having come out to their best friend of 10 years in the first year of college, they were abandoned because he felt that Balaji was unnatural. This had them again question their existence. Their college life was really the lowest point, and their beginning as an openly gay personality is quite funny because having lied to their class about a secret girlfriend just as a security measure, this period was really their coming of age, as dealing with depression and extreme self-esteem issues. Balaji having trouble with their identity had taken a bunch of antidepressants in an attempt at suicide. Thankfully Balaji survived it, but this situation was really an epic turnaround for them. What’s funny is when by the end of college they took it to themselves to come out to their whole class, everyone in the class said they already knew. “They gave me huge hugs and I made a lot of friends in return,” adds Balaji with a smile.

Coming Of Age

After college, Balaji had been working in Delhi and was getting numerous marriage proposals. Balaji had to shoo them away by saying that they didn’t want to get married as an escape tactic from the topic, as their mum didn’t know about their orientation.

After being invited to speak at a TEDx event Balaji took on themselves to come out at this TED Talk and had an underlying theme about gender stereotypes, being a crossdresser as well. I am not a big fan of this term. I think the term Queen needs to be reclaimed by the community to describe cross-dressing, it has a positive connotation but unfortunately, through history, it was used as an insult, but it needs to be reclaimed like how the African-American Community reclaimed the N-word.
Now, as TED talks get uploaded on the internet and there’s no way to avoid it, Balaji’s brother sent this TED talk video to their Mum, who called them home immediately as she was sick. So they went and finally gave the ultimate truth to their mum. She is the hero in this situation because as it can be difficult in our culture to accept it, she chose to do it and saw a path of happiness even though she knew about some of the stigmatization attached to having an openly gay son.

At Present

Now Balaji works in celebrity brand management, and also has contributed to Gaylaxy, an LGBT magazine. They continue to empower and give motivational speeches to those who had stories like them or in some cases even worse which is really important for their community because there’s a lot of abuse that comes in the way of accepting who you are especially when you’re in the LGBT spectrum.

Balaji’s strength is the main superpower that has brought them here, because in our culture, as strong you may be, they have to be quadruple times as strong just to survive through a culture that is very unaccepting and judgemental. Balaji adds, “You have to be the change to bring the change.”

This Is Balaji for you, a voice for the fallen.

Follow them @queeromania