Making the invisible visible Bérénice Magistretti

2024
Libertà

Making the invisible visible

How do you make the invisible visible?
In the world, about one billion individuals live with an invisible disability, which is when there is nothing external, like a wheelchair or a cane, that signals a disability. From vision impairments to hearing impairments to Lupus, Lyme disease, Long Covid and other forms of chronic illnesses, about 80% of disabilities are invisible.
Writer and disabilities activist Bérénice Magistretti talks about her journey with gradual sight loss and shares how challenging it was to transition from an invisible to a visible disability. Today, she is a proud cane user and is striving to remove the stigma from these accessibility aids. Bérénice Magistretti is a writer and disabilities activist based in Milan, Italy. She is striving to destigmatize disabilities by starting new conversations through fashion, beauty, art and design, showing that we can make the accessible beautiful and the beautiful accessible. She has shared her vision and mission in publications like British Vogue, AD Italia, Cosmopolitan, Forbes and NYLON France. Her idea of “Making the invisible visible” stems from her own personal journey as a visually impaired woman who recently became a cane user. By designing her own beautiful and very visible cane, handmade in Italy, Bérénice wants to show that accessibility aids can become fashionable accessories — representing the person as a whole, not just their disability.