New limited edition collection with wheelchair fashion brand includes wheel covers for adults and children.
Sanrio’s Hello Kitty has teamed up with wheelchair fashion brand, Izzy Wheels for a new collaboration.
Izzy Wheels – which was founded by two Irish sisters, Ailbhe and Izzy Keane – was initially a college project. The idea was inspired by Izzy who was born with Spina Bifida and is paralysed from her waist down. Ailbhe saw that her sister’s chair was the first thing people noticed about her, but it wasn’t a reflection of her bright and bubbly personality.
Ailbhe began designing a range of stylish wheel covers that expressed wheelchair users individuality and personality, transforming a medical device into a piece of fashion and self-expression. The brand’s tagline is ‘If you can’t stand up, stand out!’.
Since founding the company, the duo have collaborated with over 80 famous artists and brands from around the world to transform wheelchairs into works of art.
Hello Kitty x Izzy Wheels will debut in two capsule collections: The Sweetheart Collection and The Retro Food Collection. There are six unique and stylish wheel covers available on a range of sizes for all manual wheelchairs, with the collaboration playing an important part in Izzy Wheels’ brand mission ‘to make the fashion and design world more inclusive’.
The Sweetheart collection showcases the classic Hello Kitty theme with her cute red bow. The Retro Food Collection, meanwhile, has reimagined everyday treats into a world of Hello Kitty rainbow themed foods in a comic book style. All of the prints were created by Ailbhe, the brand’s creative director, using the Hello Kitty style archives.
“Fashion and playfulness have always been at the heart of we do and we’re thrilled to work with such a fun brand that played such a massive role in my childhood,” commented Ailbhe.
Izzy added: “It is so incredibly exciting that we are collaborating with a brand as famous as Hello Kitty. Growing up I got to see first-hand Ailbhe’s total obsession with the adorable character and anything associated with the brand.
“From a personal perspective, as a wheelchair user, it’s so wonderful that Izzy Wheels is collaborating with such a globally loved brand like Hello Kitty because when kids see a character which they are so familiar with associated with a medical device like a wheelchair it automatically makes the chair less scary and more cool to them.”
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