📢 On the Growth of Achondroplasia and Clothing

I launched the online shop 【GAGO-276-】, which makes clothing for people with achondroplasia, in October 2023... a small dream that has just begun.
What's amazing is that I stepped into a field I had never used, had no knowledge of, and wasn't particularly good at (lol).
From the perspective of those around me, I'm sure they only have questions like, 'Is this okay?' If asked, 'Are you okay?'... it's a fact that I can't proudly say, 'Yes, I am.'
There are too many things I can't do, and if you add that I'm not dexterous, the answer becomes obvious.

So why did I start? Perhaps it's because the feeling of '{I want to do this,' the misconception that '{maybe I can do it,' and the assumption that '{it will somehow work out...' have become my starting point.
This is where my introverted yet positive-thinking side is being expressed.
In particular, the very first '{I want to do this' is the biggest driving force within me.

In my child's daily life, they manage to live by balancing things in their own dexterous way with a little ingenuity and ideas. However, once they leave the house as a member of society, they enter a world where they are immediately distinguished.
Of course, it's unavoidable because their body shape is different from those around them, and they cannot do things the same way as others without using ingenuity or ideas.

And one of the daily troubles and challenges became clothing.
Imagine this... the size at birth is not much different from a healthy person, and since the average height of an adult male with achondroplasia is around 130cm, the growth period is short and ends quickly. My child had almost no changes after the age of 15 or 16, when hormone secretion decreases.
The problem is that 'limbs and fingers are short, and the head is large...'You might imagine a body shape like an anime character somewhere, but at this height, the part that grows the most is the
upper body (torso). Of course, the head is large to begin with and grows little by little, becoming even larger, but what changed in clothing size was the length and width. And, to balance 'supporting that body' and the 'protruding buttocks,' the thighs become very thick, leading to bowlegs.This indescribable lower body shape makes choosing pants difficult. Because the spine is arched, the waist is thin, the protruding buttocks are large, and consequently, the thighs are quite thick, and the legs are short...
When choosing off-the-shelf pants, what should be the standard for selection? This is the biggest concern for people with achondroplasia. Girls have the option of choosing skirts, but boys have no options.
Yes, the fact that the head is large and the
balance between the upper and lower body is poor attracts even more attention from those around them.

I scoured the internet to see if I could solve that problem. What does everyone do for clothes? There were no ready-made clothes, and the answer was, as expected, to have them altered. Of course, it's good to have clothes altered to fit your body perfectly. However, it costs money and time to have them altered.
Then, maintaining your body shape becomes essential. For people with achondroplasia, who tend to gain weight easily, this becomes a different kind of problem.
And finding ready-made clothes that serve as the basis for alterations, finding fabric that suits body movement, and encountering clothes that can be worn even with one's own body shape is close to a miracle. It always ends up with the result of just being able to wear them while compromising somewhere.
Just the other day, when my child said they wanted to wear cargo pants and came out of the fitting room, the pockets on the side of the thighs, which would be on a healthy person, were below their knees. We looked at each other and they disappeared back into the fitting room (lol).

No, more than that, since there are people with various body shapes in the world who choose and buy ready-made products, it should be fine for people with disabilities to buy ready-made products for people with disabilities... I want to be fashionable, I want to be able to cover my body shape, I wonder if I can make such clothes... That question turned into the feeling of '{I want to do this,' which made me decide to produce ready-made clothing for people with disabilities, and I was just waiting for the time to start.

...Recently, I think about the future.
After I'm gone, will they be able to manage properly? I wonder. Perhaps that's worrying unnecessarily, and things will just have to work out, and whether I'm satisfied or not is a separate matter, but I think it will somehow work out. Just as patients with achondroplasia have lived until now.

However, I also think about whether I can do my best to make the world a little easier to live in when I leave it behind. In the end, I think this positioning of not being able to fit into the disability quota and not being able to fit into the healthy person quota is what makes life difficult.
Can't something be done about it?
I'm not asking for much. I gave birth knowing that I would be giving birth to a child with a disability...
I will continue to devote myself daily, thinking about what I can do now and what I can do because it's me.
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Thank you for reading to the end.

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