Clothes That Accent Style and Respect
Once upon a time, people with developmental disabilities were schooled and housed away from “normal” folks in institutions up on hills. Times have changed, and today those large, anonymous buildings have mostly given way to homey housing in regular family neighborhoods.
This quest for normalcy and respect reaches all the way down to the clothes people wear. Clothing that looks odd, ill-fitting or ugly just isn’t acceptable anymore. Businesses have sprung up to offer alternatives for people whose bodies and capabilities mean that ready-mades at Macy’s can’t always fit the bill.
Perhaps people have fingers that fumble over buttons. Or feeding tubes and urine collection bags that caregivers need easy access to. Or they’re 50-year-olds with little-girl frames that shouldn’t be dressed up in Disney and frills.
“It’s about dignity,” says 36-year-old Tom Pirruccello, co-owner--with old school pal Kurt Rieback, 35--of one such business, Professional Fit Clothing.
More than a decade ago, the two men lived in different worlds. Pirruccello was an assistant administrator in an L.A.-area home for people with developmental disabilities and was tired of seeing young residents wandering around in baggy polyester pants, voluminous dusters and muumuus. Rieback was in the rag trade, selling bikinis in the downtown garment district.
One day, the two spotted each other on the freeway, went through a hand-waving “Call me!” song and dance, and met soon after. Clearly, they agreed, here was both a need and a niche, and the two of them--Rieback, with his apparel industry know-how, Pirruccello with his health-care experience--were perfectly poised to fill it. They started Professional Fit Clothing soon after.
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On a Monday not long ago, at Professional Fit’s offices on an industrial street in Burbank, two women are sitting at sewing machines, shortening and tapering slacks for a customer. Another worker is heat-sealing name labels onto orders so clothes won’t get jumbled and lost in group homes that cater to a half-dozen or more.
Racks of clothes hang here and there, near stacks of “clothing protectors,” designed to save garments from drool and spilled food. (Some of the protectors look like formal vests, others like bright Ts or jaunty bandannas; all look much more stylish than bibs or towels traditionally used in their stead.)
Rieback rifles through the racks and points out items of interest. Here’s a fleece-lined, waterproof cape that covers customer and wheelchair, a bestseller during El Nin~o; here’s a find of a nightshirt he picked up at an apparel show, complete with easy-fasten snaps and a cotton-poly fabric that withstands fierce, industrial washes. A “buttoned” shirt on this rack actually fastens with Velcro, combining appearance with manageability; a Hawaiian shirt nearby has been cut open at the back for easy dressing and comfort for a man who isn’t able to sit up, so must always lie on his back.
“Hawaiian shirts are ‘in’ right now,” Rieback says. “Why shouldn’t he have access to them?”
Rieback hefts a clothes rack and zippered bags of clothing into the back of his SUV, and heads over to Sylmar to Altano House, a 12-bed residential nursing home where 51-year-old Margaret Cole and 43-year-old Susan Ober live. Both need clothes, and with the help of Rieback and live-in care provider Niecola Roberts, 28, the shopping list comes together.
Cole seems taken aback by the sudden hubbub in her bedroom and the business of being tape-measured. She watches as velour pantsuits and sweats with snowman motifs are laid out on her bed--and says little but favors a blue nightie.
Roberts orders the nightie, which Cole needs, along with several pantsuits with easy-to-manage elastic waistbands, a clothing protector and a dress. Professional Fit will alter all the clothes to fit Cole’s tiny frame. They’ll cut an extra opening--level with her stomach--in all the clothes, so her caregivers can reach her gastric feeding tube with ease.
Rieback moves the clothes to another bedroom, where Ober is sitting in her wheelchair, listening to Hootie and the Blowfish and examining her coin collection. Ober doesn’t go for a purple outfit with the flowery top she’s shown but smiles at, then reaches out and touches, the blue denim pantsuit--she likes its feel and color. Roberts orders it for her.
“I love it,” says Roberts of the service. The clothes are competitively priced, she says, and “Kurt brings clothes that you or I would wear--not uniforms, not standout, ‘OK, these are the clothes of the handicapped,’ but nice, normal things.”
“It’s wonderful,” agrees Kathryn Campbell, a service coordinator with Therapeutic Living Centers, a nonprofit organization that provides services for blind individuals with developmental disabilities and runs 10 group homes in the L.A. area. “It’s a difficult thing to shop for people who are either nonverbal or in some way developmentally disabled. This way, the client gets to pick out what they want. If they’re blind, they can feel. If they’re nonverbal, you can show them and they can point.”
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At Rieback’s last stop for the day, he sets up the clothes rack in the living room of Elkwood House, a home for six in the San Fernando Valley. Several women--all visually impaired--are clustered round the rack, touching the clothes and asking about ones they like the feel of.
Monica Valentine, a 44-year-old woman in a fuzzy, chenille top, seeks out fabrics with soft, pleasing textures. Yolanda Montes, 48, asks about the range of colors for a pantsuit, and exclaims in surprise when she’s told one is “oatmeal.” (“Never heard of that,” she says.)
Orders complete, Rieback loads clothes and rack in his car again and heads back to Burbank. It may not be as glam as the bikini biz, this job, but he finds it much more satisfying.
“Every day I get to see how happy it makes the people that I sell to,” he says. “It’s deeply rewarding. The other was kind of superficial.”
Professional Fit Clothing is in Burbank. Information about other businesses offering specialty clothing can be obtained by calling these nonprofit centers, which provide services and support for people with developmental disabilities:
* Harbor Regional Center, (310) 540-1711
* North Los Angeles County Regional Center, (818) 778-1900
* Frank D. Lanterman Regional Center, (800) 546-3676
