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Gucci is taking steps to improve in-store accessibility for disabled consumers through a partnership with visual interpreting service Aira, in what could be a blueprint for the rest of luxury fashion to follow.
Through the Aira app, Gucci customers can now speak to remote visual interpreters, who will have live access to the back camera on the user’s smartphone. The interpreters will be able to describe the store layout and any potential barriers to access, as well as highlighting where customers can find certain product categories, fitting rooms or checkout counters. They will also be able to interact with in-store client advisors to describe recommended products and available colourways in detail. The interpreters will be provided with detailed store and product information in advance of these calls, and are specifically trained to assist customers through the shopping experience, says Gucci.
Capsule collections have helped make adaptive fashion more mainstream, and a handful of brands are adding more inclusive HR policies, but Gucci is thinking far more broadly. The luxury house hopes to create systems change, a disruptive approach to disability inclusion that could benefit all customers.
As of today, the partnership will roll out from pilot projects in the brand’s Miami Bal Harbour and Beverly Hills stores to an additional 22 US locations, free of charge to the blind and low-vision customers that it aims to support. Other countries could soon follow, as the brand says it plans to measure the take-up on Aira in the US, learn from any challenges that arise and recalibrate it for different markets.
This could be a breakthrough for blind and low-vision consumers, but there are potential implications for other consumers too, disabled or otherwise, says disability rights advocate and accessibility consultant Sinéad Burke, a member of Gucci’s global equity council, whose consultancy Tilting the Lens is also a strategic partner to the brand. “As a sighted person, the app isn’t explicitly designed for me right now, but maybe a visual interpreter could support me with engaging in Gucci stores in other countries where I don’t speak the local language,” she explains. “We could also think about people with anxiety or neurodivergence, who might find stores inaccessible and need support way-finding to alleviate those challenges.”
To maximise the impact of Aira, Gucci says it needed to upskill its in-store client advisors, to understand how the software works and their role in the process. “It isn’t about diminishing the role of Gucci’s in-store client advisors, but enhancing it,” says Burke. Client advisors can help by discussing the materiality, textures, different types of embroidery and other design elements that are tactile as well as visual, so their existing skills not only adapt to this software, but evolve because of it. The customer, the Aira agent and the client advisor end up reverse mentoring each other, she continues, because different people need to access the stores in different ways at different times of day, based on their differing accessibility needs. “It’s about giving the customer or prospective employee agency to decide when and how they need access and additional support.”
Beyond pilot programmes
This isn’t the first time Gucci has taken a stance on accessibility. In July 2022, it became the first and only high fashion brand to become a certified participant in the annual Disability Equality Index, a joint venture by leading disability rights organisation, the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), and Disability:In, a global business disability inclusion network supporting over 400 corporations. Companies are scored out of 100; those with less than 70 points remain confidential and are not considered certified. The benchmark takes 30-40 hours to complete and has also been used by Abercrombie Fitch Co., Estée Lauder Companies, H&M and Nike, among others
Last year, Gucci scored 80 out of a possible 100 points, the minimum required to be named one of the “best places to work for disability inclusion”. This year, the Kering-owned brand has been awarded 100 points, positioning it firmly in that category.
To increase its score over the last year, Gucci has invested in new opportunities for supplier diversity and started to track and measure the engagement of disabled stakeholders and disabled-owned businesses; encouraged the self-identification of internal employees with both visible and invisible disabilities; and expanded digital accessibility beyond the typical tick-boxes of alt text on images and social media posts, explains Burke. Next, Gucci is keen to tackle the intersection between architecture and accessibility, she adds, pointing to both store design and planning, as well as office and production spaces. “I always come back to this quote from the architect Simone de Gale: it’s not that disabled people didn’t exist before, it’s that the buildings were inaccessible.”
Longer-term, Burke would like to see brands rethink their store planning strategies and map their retail footprint by accessibility rather than heritage. “Within a luxury fashion retail landscape, so much of where those retail spaces exist, the buildings are protected for heritage and cannot be made accessible. What does that mean for who can be employed, who can be a customer, who can engage with the space?” she asks. “In the future, luxury brands might look beyond Via Monte Napoleone in Milan or the Champs-Élysées in Paris. If that’s not possible, how do we look at the inclusion of accessibility standards as an opportunity rather than a cost? Imagine if the fashion system said to landlords: we will renew our leases if you allow us to put a ramp or stair lift at the front of the store, rather than making people go around the back by the bins or be excluded altogether.”
The biggest barrier to this is shifting mindsets, says Burke. “Compliance should be the floor, not the ceiling. Even if we look at compliance, who is it compliant to or for? So much of the legislation around physical spaces is designed for the accessibility of wheelchair users, which is incredibly important, but we are learning more about neurodivergent employees, about mental illness and mental health, about menopause and the needs they require. People should have a sense of belonging and psychological safety in these spaces, and be equipped to succeed as a consumer or an employee.”
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