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Models With Disabilities Shine At Western Canada Fashion Week

And the fashion week is earning praise for its inclusiveness.

On Saturday, models with disabilities got the chance to walk the runway at Edmonton’s Western Canada Fashion Week (WCFW) — and they totally owned it!

The event was held to celebrate diversity in fashion and featured models with physical disabilities, including models with amputations, models in wheelchairs and models who use walkers.


According to creative director Sandra Sing Fernandes, it has always been WCFW’s mission to be inclusive and representative of people that are of different shapes, sizes, abilities and experiences.

“We have been about diversity since day one,” Fernandes told Vue Weekly about WCFW, which launched in 2005. “We’ve been all-inclusive about the types of models we’ve had, and we’ve had all nationalities and all different types from the very beginning.”

This is the first year the fashion week has featured models with disabilities, Global News reports. However, this is not the first time they tried to organize such an event.

Fernandes revealed to Vue Weekly that they originally tried to feature the models last year, but plans fell through.


This year's WCFW also featured older models between the ages of 40 and 80 during their “Ageless Style” event on Mar. 23.

Randall MacDonald, the event’s M.C., told Global News that the fashion week was really about proving that “fashion is for everyone.”

“I know we see in the magazines these thin 14-year-old models and people think: ‘I’m not that so I can’t wear fashion,’” he told the site. “What we’re trying to tell people is: that’s not true; fashion truly is for everybody. You can be fashionable at any age, any weight, any height, any ability; it’s really just about being fabulous.”

Over the past week, WCFW has earned praise for being so inclusive and body-positive.

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