‘Fashion adapted for neurodivergentes’This is how Ana Martín defines the brand he created three years ago to reconcile, first as a mother and then as the mother of an autistic child. It was precisely seeing the needs that his son had when he decided to turn his brand and focus on people who, like his son, sometimes have difficulty finding fashion adapted to their needs.
Thus he was born Ana Martín Creationsa fashionable brand sensitized with autism and other neurodivergencies, in which we find from garments without internal seams, softer or accessible, to ideas as original as ‘hanging’ or all types of custom accessories or accessories and even the letter. Garments with small adaptations, but make the lives of people like their child much easier.
How was Ana Martín Creations born?I was actually a nurse, but when I had my son Mario I decided to leave him to focus on him. Until a few years I did not know not to sew a button … When Mario was two years old, we already knew that he had autism and also agreed that my father died, I started thinking about doing something for me and gave me to start sewing. I signed up for an academy and started doing things for my son, snack bags for children, things for my friends, accessories … and when I saw that I did many assigns, I decided to take it more seriously.
Didn’t you start making ‘adaptive fashion’?No, I started in the world of sewing doing things for the general public. A time later I realized that I had been making adaptations for Mario for some time, such as changing velcro buttons, I wore softer fabrics, easy -to -open bags … and I thought that if I was doing it for Mario, I could also do it for other people with this type of needs, for neurodivergentes, such as people with autism, ADHD, Down syndrome. And here I continue, trying, on the one hand, to help, and on the other, to survive. And I’m still enjoying it what is beautiful.
On your website there are products of various types: clothing, accessories, specific objects to wear pictograms … What are you inspired to create them?Many times I think of Mario, especially at the beginning. I am inspired by what things bother him, he does not like … and also in what they tell me in many families, I speak with associations … In addition, many times it is the moms who ask me very specific things. For example, a mother who has recently asked me a game of sheets from the monster of colors because her son, who still sleeps in bed with her, likes it a lot, and, others to do it, of that specific request that they make me, I have inspired myself to do similar things, and now I also make sheets of sheets.
In addition, a few months ago I launched an anonymous survey so that my clients and followers were putting the needs they had regarding conventional fashion, and from there I also took many ideas, helped me to know what things were not finding in conventional fashion.
There is a lot to understand that we are all different and that we should all go hand in hand, and I know it is a utopia
What are the most successful products?The belts for communicators, for example, are very successful, because although there are straps in the market, they are typical that come with the tablet, very conventional, very adult, nothing colorful … and in the end they are children who need things about children or adolescents, things they like. I made a Mario one, people saw her, and they started asking me several because it motivated children to take the communicators. They also ask me a lot of ‘hanging’ and the winter necks, which in fact was the first thing I adapted for Mario. I make them open so that they have greater autonomy and not to overwhelm them, which, as with the internal seams, is something that usually bothers them a lot. And at the level of teachers and therapists, stoles triumph, which are not adapted as such, but they are designed to work more comfortably with children.
Do you do all of you?Yes, for now I am alone. I would like to have a little collaboration in that aspect in the future, but now I am alone for everything. The truth is that it is a lot, and more considering that I can only work in the morning, when they are in school.
If it is already difficult to undertake and reconcile, with one of your kids with autism it will be even more difficult. How do you get it?Basically, I don’t get it, hahaha, I’m surviving. I try to plan very well what I am going to do every day and in the end there are days that I do half of what I had proposed. Sometimes you join in a state of constant frustration, and you are throwing miles. I work all morning when they are in school and starting at noon is complete dedication to them, and Mario’s therapies, which has some days. As, fortunately, they sleep soon, when they are asleep, I can dedicate a couple of horites more if the fatigue allows you.
Employment and becoming autonomous is the solution that many mothers find with children with disabilities to continue working. What would you say to someone to do so for this reason?That if you have valued to do so and it seems the best option, go ahead, but that it is quite difficult to undertake in these conditions. Although it depends on the circumstances of each one, because in cases like mine, that I do not have family support, undertake and work from home is well because it is very flexible, but it becomes very difficult, the truth.
In the end that it is your own boss is in quotes, because my bosses are my clients and my children, and if my children get sick, I cannot work, and I have to move the work at night or postpone the orders, to get beating to recover the lost time …
What dreams do you have for Ana Martín Creations?More than dreams, that sounds very utopian, I get goals, and my goal is now to continue, which is not little, and grow to reach more people, to more needs, be able to derive orders from some external workshop …
If your first child had been neurotypical. What do you think would be doing now?This surely, no. Sending is likely to be, but I would not be dedicated to this audience, because if you learn something when these things touch you closely, if they do not touch you, it is no longer that you do not dedicate yourself to something related to this, but that many times you are not aware or that these realities exist.
At least with respect to autism, which is what I know, or any other disability, there is still a lot of visibility. And with my brand, for example, I can help cover some needs that do not cover others, but make visible not visible, or aware, because the people who buy me touches him closely and are already aware of the subject. To the rest of society is the one to raise awareness, and to achieve this we are still far. There is a lot to understand that we are all different and that we should all go hand in hand, and I know it is a utopia.
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