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From
UC-Berkeley:
BERKELEY, Calif. — Even in middle school, Alva Gardner had
her fashion standards. Jeans made expressly for wheelchair users — cut
high in the back, low in the front, Velcroed at the fly — seemed like a
potential boon.
But when the mail-order pants arrived on her doorstep, Gardner, then
13 or 14, refused to wear them. Although easier for her to put on and
take off than standard jeans, they were baggy and ugly, recalls the UC
Berkeley undergrad. And baggy and ugly, she says, “would not have been
good for my social life.”
Fast forward to 2012: Gardner, now a 22-year-old Berkeley senior,
aspires to work in the clothing industry — designing for people, women
especially, whose bodies don’t fit the “norm” (a word she utters
ironically, aided by air quotes).
As illustration she calls up, on her smartphone, a running list of
accessible-fashion concepts awaiting execution by a skilled seamstress —
a pair of pants, for instance, with its primary pockets moved to the
knees, where people in wheelchairs “could actually use them.” On cold
days the same lucky individuals could don a Gardner-designed
fleece-lined poncho, complete with metal grommets for easy attachment to
the chair.
And what about an umbrella on a swivel mechanism for easy raising and
a dry, hands-free ride? “I need to make some friends in the engineering
department,” Gardner says.
Her interest in fashion is tied, she says, to her discovery and
exploration of her sexuality — an activity rarely associated with those
in the disability community. Gardner, who was born with cerebral palsy,
begs to differ with the misconception. “People with disabilities are
sexually active. Don’t assume they’re not,” she insists.
She gave public voice to these sentiments earlier this year at a campus performance of The Vagina Monologues,
playwright Eve Ensler’s award-winning collection of monologues on
women’s sexuality. The play serves as a springboard for “V-Day” benefit
performances each February, which often include new monologues written
by participants.
Gardner’s very personal poem with a four-letter title chastised
“able-bodied society, and men specifically,” she explains, for
discounting sexually attractive women like herself because of one
“non-normative” vital statistic — a disability. She recalls it getting
“an amazing reception” — and how several people inquired whether Ensler
had written the monologue. “I was flattered!”
An American Studies major with concentrations reflecting her protean
interests (psychology, art, disability studies, gender and women’s
studies), Gardner’s courses at Berkeley have given her “academic
backing” to understand — and a vocabulary with which to talk about — “a
lot of what I experience” as a woman with a disability, she says.
Invisibility is a big part of that reality. Characters with “atypical
bodies” are few and far between on TV, and one rarely sees a model with
a visible disability in a fashion ad, Gardner observes.
She plans to stay at Berkeley for a fifth year to explore this
fertile terrain, in a thesis looking at fashion and popular culture. Its
theme in a nutshell: “the inaccessibility” of fashion advertising, “and
how it influences the self-esteem of people with disabilities in an
able-bodied society.”
She also hopes to continue the “public-speaking career” she began at
age 8, when she spoke to a roomful of college students studying special
education — about what it was like to be a kid with a disability.
Looking back now on that childhood, Gardner describes it as “hard”
but “privileged,” too — because of an “amazing mom who made me very
strong.” Middle-schoolers “are mean, heartless people,” Gardner says of
her early teens. And while her high-school administration was
supportive, it was “tough to be the only kid in a chair,” she recalls.
“I got quiet and introverted, and that’s definitely not me.”
College has been “an entirely different world in terms of inclusion
and acceptance,” Gardner adds. “I don’t like using the word ‘normal,’
but disability is ‘normalized’ here.”
These days she guest-lectures periodically at UCSF Medical Center,
hoping “to break down preconceived notions” for future doctors. “Get to
know your patient,” she tells them. “Don’t be a mindless doctor who
arbitrarily prescribes. Know other options besides surgery and meds.”
She shares her personal experience: how, for instance, she does not
have the seizures typically associated with CP; nor has she had the
tendon-lengthening surgery often recommended for kids with the
condition. “Instead of mindlessly following the doctor’s orders,”
Gardner says, “my mom did research, talked to other parents, consulted
with doctors and actively advocated” on her daughter’s behalf — and an
“amazing pediatrician” respected “our opinions and voice” regarding
treatment options, she says.
Gardner has, in fact, done traditional forms of physical and
occupational therapy in her life. But she’s also participated in
activities that may surprise: swimming, skiing, snowboarding,
Feldenkrais, even (as cited on her Facebook page) power soccer and bungee-jumping off a high place, tethered only by an elastic cord.
“It was a lot of fun. I’d love to do it again,” she says of the latter. “And skydiving is on my bucket list.”
In the meantime, if there’s an able seamstress out there, or a clever
mechanical engineer, Alva Gardner would like to get in touch with you.
