arts&life

fashion

Perfectly
Imperfect

A local mom has

launched a blog for

fashionistas with

invisible disabilities.

ABOVE: Lainie Ishbia.

42

March 1 • 2018

JENNIFER LOVY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

M

ost of Lainie Ishbia’s
friends and acquain-
tances knew noth-
ing about her struggles with
certain daily tasks like holding
a pen, putting change in a park-
ing meter or opening a packet
of sugar. They didn’t know that
under her cute jeans and chic
shoes were a pair of leg braces
she needed in order to walk. It
wasn’t a secret. It’s just that her
degenerative neuromuscular
disease typically didn’t come up
in conversation.
“I didn’t think my invisible
disability should define me or
be a part of how I introduce

jn

myself,” she said. “I didn’t hide
it but there was no point in tell-
ing people about it either.”
Until now.
A few weeks ago, Ishbia, a
47-year-old Huntington Woods
wife and mom, decided to pub-
licly share her condition along
with her passion for fashion, a
heavy dose of inspiration and all
her favorite lifestyle hacks for
successfully navigating life with
an invisible disability. Her plat-
form for sharing — the internet.
Her website — trend-able.com.
Trend-able is about empow-
ering women with invisible
physical disabilities to look and

feel their best, said Ishbia, who
maintains that people feel bet-
ter when they look better.
“Fashion for people with
invisible physical disabilities is
nearly nonexistent. There are
some brands designing for dis-
abled people, but their focus is
on visible [wheelchair-depen-
dent] disabilities,” Ishbia wrote
on her website. “As an AFO (leg
brace) wearer, the shoe cata-
logues geared toward people
‘like me’ feature smiling gran-
nies on the cover, wearing ugly
black Velcro ‘comfort’ shoes
that are definitely not my style.
I started to wonder if there are

other women out there with
invisible disabilities who want
to look and feel their best but
settle for shoes or clothing just
because they fit.”
When she introduced her
new venture in late January, she
did so by posting the following
on Facebook: “I’m sure many
of you didn’t know until now
that I have a slowly progres-
sive neuromuscular disorder
called Charcot Marie Tooth
(CMT) Disorder. Since CMT is
not life-threatening and cur-
rently untreatable, I have never
felt the need to show the world
I need leg braces to walk and