Taking up space at NZ Fashion Week

Plus: A new content series, exciting events, and smashing internalised ableism ✊🏼

Kia ora! This week I was lucky enough to spend some time at New Zealand Fashion Week | Kahuria in Tāmaki Makaurau. One of my highlights was seeing some disabled friends strut their stuff on the runway 🤩 I spoke to All Is For All’s Grace Stratton, who said the presence of disabled models means “making sure that people in positions of power see us and they see us taking up space”. Read more about it here.

Image description: A model with Down syndrome wears a blue sequins dress, a model in a wheelchair wears a black and white top with a long fur white skirt, and a low-vision model wearing sunglasses with a cane wears a black shirt with a green vest and green trousers. These models featured on the NZ Fashion Week runway. Credit: Getty Images.

Also, I’ll be in Europe for a holiday for most of September. I’m sure there will be many relatable disability travel lols to share when I get back! But in the meantime, the rest of the team will be picking up on D*List content and the newsletter for a couple of weeks. So if The D*List Delivered has a different flavour (and a few more typos 🤭) in the next few editions, you’ll know why!

This week in The Spinoff, Robyn Hunt wrote about aging with a disability and raised the issue that support systems for elders are unprepared for disabled people. “Many disabled older people are not taking kindly to this. For us, the disability came first, then the ageing. That makes a difference,” she says. “We do not always fit with either younger disabled people or the age-related impairment group. We are accustomed to living with impairment and disability, but face very particular issues as we age.” You can read the rest of her piece here.

Up in Kaitāia, a design team is looking forward to the Dargaville Wearable Arts contest this weekend with their design Out of the Blue featuring Haroldene Pene, a wheelchair user. “We hope our model Haroldene Pene will be seen as the beautiful independent woman that she is,” says designer Lois Stather-Dunn. The contest starts on Friday and runs through to Sunday at the Pioneer Rugby Park. Read more about the contest here.

D*List contributing writer Amelia Jacobson has written about how going flatting helped smashed her internalised ableism. She said by leaning into discomfort and voicing aspects of her disability that might not make sense, she and her flatmates designed a home of trust and safety.

Image description: Ite is a bald man with glasses wearing a suit and smiling at the camera. His image is surrounded by a collage of a BBQ, wrestling figure, a cross, a burger and weights.

This week, we’re also featuring a My D*List profile from another member in our community. Ite Lemalu shares his love for music and the importance of community - and his party trick of having the ability to play every wrestler’s theme song 🤯

👶 Are you a disabled parent looking for people who experience the world in the same way? We are gauging interest from those in our community who are keen to connect with other disabled parents. Send us an email to kiaora@thedlist.co.nz and we’ll help connect the dots!

🎭 The Disabled Artists’ Festival Of Theatre - or DAFT - is being launched on Saturday 16th September in Pōneke/Wellington. The team are offering as many accessible events as possible - including New Zealand Sign Language interpreters, audio description, relaxed performances and multiple seating options. Check out the programme of workshops here.

📜 A petition has been presented to Parliament to create more wheelchair accessible housing in New Zealand. It is currently open for signatures, and you can find out more here.

📚 Next week, some of The D*List team will be heading along to Disability Connect’s Transition Expo. It is being held on Wednesday 6th September in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland. The purpose of the expo is to inform disabled school-leavers and their whānau of the possibilities of what life can look like after school. Check out more information about the expo here.

🇹🇴 Also taking place in Tāmaki on the same day, Vaka Tautua are holding a Pasifika Talanoa and Tongan Language Week celebration at Te Puke ō Tara Community Centre, altars, from 10am - 2pm. There will be kai, giveaways, and heaps of entertainment!

🎥 Finally, we’re currently developing a content series called Disability Dilemmas - where we work as a community to solve those everyday questions and challenges that come from living our disabled lives. So if you have a dilemma you want some advice on from The D*List community, send us a DM on Instagram, or just reply to this email! We’d love to hear from you.

- Olivia Shivas, Editor