British Vogue has released a braille edition of the magazine’s latest issue. The publication’s editor-in-chief Edward Enninful announced the development with a post on Instagram. “The Vogue team and I are delighted by the response to the May issue, but what the process of making it taught us is that what’s most important are tangible and lasting changes,” he wrote, noting that readers are now able “to be sent the audio file, to print a Braille file of the issue at home for free or to register your interest in receiving a physical Braille copy.” Produced in collaboration with Tilting the Lens, an accessibility and inclusion consultancy company that has advised brands like Netflix and Starbucks on how to make their businesses more disability-friendly, the edition features 19 disabled people from fashion, sports, activism and the arts.
Kim Charlson, the executive director of the braille and talking book library at Perkins School for the Blind, says that it’s really a “game changer” as fashion and design publications in particular lack accessibility. “It benefits certainly the community and makes information available to us that probably other people kind of take for granted,” she said. ” It’s just giving us access to trends and fashion and design that I think a lot of people believe blind and low vision people aren’t particularly interested in. But that’s not true because we want to be sure we understand what everybody else is doing.”
