By Michelle Roger
It’s strange how a photo or a TV ad can make your heart sing. But that’s just what the latest Target Australia ads have done. Featuring the lovely Angel Dixon, this campaign shows how easy it is to do inclusive advertising.
The focus is the clothing, one of the models just happens to use a walking stick but it is not the focus. Her disability isn’t hidden nor is it featured. My eye is drawn to her walking stick thanks to personal salience but mostly to the biker jacket I tried on recently. And in reality she is one of the many models in both the TV ad and mag.
This campaign is both a giant and important leap forward and a small drop in the ocean in what is needed in the industry. While Target Australia meets the style needs of many, we need other styles/brands (be it skater, couture, rockabilly or boho or the hundreds of other options) added to the mix so all disabled people have the option to express themselves through their fashion choices.
And most of all come on, Australian fashion industry. It’s not complex. And the 1 in 5 disabled Australians in this country are taking note of the brands that see us and those that continue to ignore our existence.
#Adinclusion is the only way forward.
Thank you Target Australia and rock on Angel Dixon (make sure you read Angel’s blog) .
[Images: Two photos showing pages of a Target women’s fashion catalogue featuring models of different ages, colour and body shapes, including disabled model Angel Dixon who is shown using a cane as a mobility aid.]
* Thank you to Michelle Roger for letting us publish the above, first shared on Instagram. Michelle is a writer and blogger. She describes her blog “Living with Bob (Dysautonomia)” as being “about finding the funny when faced with the absurd and disheartening world of chronic illness”.
You can also find Michelle in Kill Your Darlings, online and print journal, The Victorian Writer (Health Edition Nov 2015), online for Writer’s Victoria and ABC Ramp UP, and multiple online support groups. She has contributed a chapter to a book about Dysautonomia, presented at the Emerging Writers’ Festival (as part of Kill Your Darlings, Nerds gone Wild) in 2015 and has been a featured artist for the 2015 Digital Writers Festival in conjunction withExtraordinary Routines and a panelist for The Digital Writers Festival 2016 . Michelle has also performed pieces at a number of Salons for Writers Victoria, appeared in No Limits TV as a panelist, been interviewed for Hot Chicks With Big Brains Issue 1, and theFully Sick Podcast. You can read more about her here.
You can also keep up with Michelle on Twitter or Instagram.
[Cover photo and catalogue photos © Target Australia]