SALON

Wednesday, Jul 25, 2012 10:46 PM UTC

Fashion show shines spotlight on Ukraine disabled

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Fashion show shines spotlight on Ukraine disabledA blind model presents an outfit during a fashion show for disabled women in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, July 25, 2012. At the Wednesday night event dubbed Fashion Chance a dozen designers mostly from Ukraine presented outfits for physically handicapped women, in a bid to bring attention and dignity to some of Ukraine’s most marginalized citizens.(AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)(Credit: AP)

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — At a glitzy Kiev night club brimming with neon lights and energetic pop music, the models showed off sleek evening gowns and glamorous hats as Ukraine’s celebrities cheered on. But this was no ordinary fashion show — some models rolled on wheelchairs, others were blind.

At the Wednesday night event dubbed Fashion Chance a dozen designers mostly from Ukraine presented outfits for physically handicapped women, in a bid to bring attention and dignity to some of Ukraine’s most marginalized citizens. In a country where most buildings lack wheelchair ramps and only a very few public schools accept disabled children, the show was a small but vivid step toward removing the stigma that cloaks Ukraine’s disabled.

“People on wheelchairs, the blind, the handicapped should all feel accepted,” said 26-year-old Ilona Slugovina, an avid wheelchair ballroom dancer, who modeled a lilac-colored glittery evening dress.

Some models moved confidently down the runway — on wheel chairs, or accompanied by handsome young men in elegant suits — flashing smiles and some attempting to mimic the traditional model gait. One blind model coquettishly held her hand on her hip and played with a lock of hair. Others appeared nervous.

Moved by the show, some in the audience cried.

“I felt beautiful, I felt confident,” said Antonina Krivobok, who masterfully rolled and turned around in a wheelchair and posed in front of TV cameras as she presented a purple evening dress.

Beginning and already established designers presented elegant dresses and suits for women on wheelchairs or with other handicaps. Some of the outfits differed little from what ambulatory women would wear, others were cut in a more voluminous fashion to accommodate the needs of the wheelchair-bound.

“God made the woman beautiful and the designer’s goal is to stress that beauty,” said Natalia Anri, a top Ukrainian designer.

But it wasn’t just about clothes.

Yulia Kozluk, 28, who runs a fund that trains and then finds computer jobs for those on wheelchairs like herself, said she hoped such projects would help Ukrainian society grow up and accept those who are different.

“When I roll in my wheelchair, people stare me like I am an alien and it wounds,” said Kozluk, who became paralyzed at age 23 after a car accident. “But I am not an alien, I am a regular person.”

Ukraine’s physically handicapped people are barely visible to the country at large, confined to their homes in the absence of ramps, elevators and specially equipped buses and mostly shunned by society in a grim legacy of the Soviet era.

Children with disabilities are usually hidden away in specialized schools or orphanages, where they are deprived of a chance to interact with other children and society as a whole does not learn to co-exist, accept and help those with disabilities. Only a handful of public schools accept disabled children, because building entrances, canteens and toilets are not equipped with ramps, teachers lack the necessary training and other students and often their parents often object to having such classmates.

In Kiev, home to tens of thousands of disabled children of school age, only about 10 schools provide inclusive education, according to Larisa Baida, an education activist with Ukraine’s National Assembly for Disabled.

“It’s sad,” said Baida. “It’s a constant struggle, every day they fight for their life.”

Universities also offer very few chances for the handicapped, lacking audio books for hearing-impaired and computers for the blind. Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union over 20 years ago, not a single book in the tactile writing system called Braille has been published for the visually impaired, according to the Assembly.

Finding a job is also a major problem, with about only 25 percent of the country’s disabled employed, mostly at low-skilled and low-paid jobs, according to the United Nations Development program.

“When we look at a disabled person, we are not ready to see a person in them” who wants to study, work and eat at restaurants, said Natalia Skripka, Assembly’s director. “While we should first be seeing a person and only then notice their peculiarities – are they tall or short, do they have blond or dark hair, do they have disabilities or not.”

More Maria Danilova.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3058 points3059 points | 2257 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
1003 points1004 points | 529 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
152 points153 points | 57 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
29 points30 points | 15 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
26 points27 points | 11 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations