Angela Harris is encouraging Alexandrians to look at fashion from a different perspective this fall — the perspective of a person with a serious visual impairment.
Harris and her organization, the IMperfeKtly Made Foundation, are hosting their fourth annual Fashion Without Limits fashion show, featuring models and designers who are experiencing vision loss.
Fashion Without Limits will be Saturday, Oct. 24 at The Garden, 5380C Eisenhower Ave. Tickets are still available, but the show has sold out in past years.
The fashion show and party from 4-8 p.m. will include works from InceptualSara by Sarah Jennings, whose Love Collection is based in part on Harris’s relationship and her vision loss story.
Harris experienced severe headaches and blurred vision just five months after getting married in 2019. Doctors discovered a brain tumor. Surgery that fall removed most of the meningioma brain tumor, but the procedure took her vision.
“We didn’t let my blindness stop the love that we had created,” Harris told ALXnow.
The Love Collection includes some of Harris’s favorite colors, which are rust and red. Other designers include Harrie’s Creations, Blind Girl Magic, Creations by Sha and YANI Boutique.
The show is open to all ages and Harris is encouraging children to attend with their parents.
“I really want to see families come out, but I want them to bring the younger kids, too. We need to start teaching them early on about inclusion,” Harris said. “We want to show them that we can do certain things that they might not think that we can. Whether sighted or blind, anything is possible.”
DJ Double M, the professional moniker of John Colbert, will spin tunes before the event. Colbert is also visually impaired.
For the first time, the event will also feature a scholarship presentation to a visually impaired student in college who is working on a degree in a fashion or design-related field.
This event has grown significantly since it started four years ago. This year, there will be 15 models who are either blind or low vision. Next year, Harris will be looking for a larger space for the event.
After learning how to live without vision, Harris started the IMperfeKtly Made Foundation to support others with vision loss. The foundation seeks to be a leading voice for people with visual impairments and its mission is “to promote eye health education, eye exams, visual screenings, and eyeglasses to the community with the focus of highlighting the importance of early detection,” according to the organization.
Fashion Without Limits isn’t Harris’s only fashion-related venture. Harris has invented a device to help people with vision loss get dressed with confidence. She is looking for a manufacturing partner to help bring Style Mate to market, and is also working on turning the device into an app.
Harris’s memoir, “Life As I See It: Finding Strength Through Adversity,” is available on Amazon.
Tickets to Fashion Without Limits are available online.
