Asos Collaborates With Paralympian Chloe Ball-Hopkins

Asos has been in the headlines of late for a list of brilliant achievements. In June alone, the e-tailer pledged to ban cashmere, silk, down and feathers across its entire platform, before following it up with the soft launch of a sustainable fashion training programme for its designers. A partnership with LGBTQ+ charity GLAAD to celebrate Pride month is the latest in a compendium of inclusive campaign imagery, which has been followed up today with a collaboration with Chloe Ball-Hopkins.

Ball-Hopkins is a Great Britain Paralympian and BBC Bristol sports reporter, who sent Asos an email several months ago urging it to make fashion accessible for everybody. Asos listened to Ball-Hopkins’s proposal of a wheelchair-friendly waterproof all-in-one – the idea came to her after a rainy 2017 Splendour Festival – and today presented the finished product. The tie-dye jumpsuit sits in the Asos Design category with Ball-Hopkins herself modelling the £50 festival-ready one-piece.

So over the last several months I have been working with @ASOS to create a fashionable, yet practical waterproof all in one! Not just for people like me in a chair but for anyone. It's about making fashion accessible! So what should be next?!

It’s “not just any jumpsuit,” reads the product description. “We’ve adapted it to be wheelchair-friendly, too. The jacket and trousers zip together and are fully waterproof. The hem’s also a little longer at the back, to stop it from riding up when you’re getting from A to B.”

"To see the final product, I can't believe that we actually worked in conjunction so much. I thought maybe they'd take it and run with it," Ball-Hopkins told the BBC. "You get the same version whether it's you or I buying it - that's the point. It is exactly the same for me as it is for you."

Praise for Asos has poured in from social media users urging other brands to break down the stigma around disabilities through its campaign imagery and messaging. As Ball-Hopkins herself said via Twitter, what should be next?