Alexa was out window shopping during her final year of studying fashion in Toronto when she spotted a beaded jacket and had an “Aha moment.”

Alexa Jovanovic loved fashion as a little girl, but it wasn’t until she studied it in school that she learned about a topic not yet trending on social media, not yet a common thing to see diversity boards and plans factored in everywhere, but she thought braille could both look aesthetically appealing and be functional as well. Her final project became the research and launching of Aille Design, now expanding across North America.

Today on Outlook, we speak with its founder about the reactions she got from people when she first explained what she was doing (the persistent misconception that blind people don’t care what they’re wearing or what they look like), the research and development that went into her braille beaded clothing with consultations from the blindness community itself, and the wider issue of disability consumerism and representation in the fashion industry.

Aille Design, pronounced like “eye” or “I” as in the personal, even has the braille character “i” represented by dots 2 and 4 of the braille alphabet.

Check them out and order some clothes on their website:

https://ailledesign.com

And find Aille Design on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ailledesign/