Nordstrom Latest Brand to Redefine Beauty by Featuring Model With Disability

Photo: Foto AP/Nordstrom
Photo: Foto AP/Nordstrom

Two new campaigns, one from Nordstrom and another from J.C. Penney, are incorporating models with disabilities to help redefine the meaning of "beautiful."

Nordstrom's new summer catalog features Jillian Mercado, who has spastic muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair. The 24-year-old rocks a leather jacket and boots and has a punky slice of lavender in her hair. Mercado, who has a style blog called Manufactured 1987, is no stranger to the fashion scene. Earlier this year, she was one of 23 models chosen to star in a campaign for Diesel denim.

"You don't have to be a conventional model type to represent a brand," Nicola Formichetti, who styled the campaign, told Women's Wear Daily about why he wanted to work with Mercado. "She's totally fearless and has really been an inspiration to me."

Mercado says she learned that fearlessness at a young age. Last year, she told the Daily Beast that her parents and two able-bodied sisters never treated her differently. "I'm pretty blessed to have them because they have pushed me to be a better person and not let negativity slow me down," she said.

Credit: Jason DeCrow/Invision for JCPenney/AP Images
Credit: Jason DeCrow/Invision for JCPenney/AP Images

J.C. Penney is also featuring people with disabilities in its new campaign, but not as part of an actual ad. Instead, the retailer designed mannequins in the molds of specific people, including a man with dwarfism and a woman in a wheelchair to be featured in the windows of the retailer's New York City flagship store. The mannequins were unveiled this week, and a camera inside the window is capturing how people react to seeing them.

It's not the first time disabled models have been included in ad campaigns or fashion shoots, proving that these models are moving from fringe to mainstream.

In 1998, Aimee Mullins, a below-the-knee double amputee and Paralympic runner, stunned the world by opening Alexander McQueen's show at London Fashion Week and walking on a pair of custom carved ash-wood legs that the designer had custom-made for her. She has since appeared in magazines including Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and People (which named her to its Most Beautiful People list), been named a global ambassador for L'Oreal, and given a TED talk.

And Kelly Knox, an English model who was born without a left forearm, has also helped boost the profile of people with disabilities in the fashion world. The winner of the reality show "Britain's Missing Top Model" has been working steadily since her victory in 2008. Although she has been offered free prosthetics, Knox opted not to wear one, saying that she likes the way she looks. Meanwhile, the British department store chain Debenham's, which has hired Knox as a model in the past, featured Paralympian Stefanie Reid in a campaign last year.

As women like Mullins, Knox, and Mercado make headway in the fashion world, they're helping change the way people think about disability. And they're not just "disabled models" – they're models.

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