We’ve just seen Australian Fashion Week grace the catwalks with the latest designer labels, but now Canberra’s seniors are strutting their walkers on the runway in a four-wheel fashion parade.
Clients at Burrangiri Aged Care Respite Centre in Rivett know exactly how to accessorise, so they’ve glammed up their walkers and dressed to the nines, to celebrate Pride Month.
Navy veteran Tino said that even though fashion wasn’t really important to him, he liked nice clothes and said, “I’m not going to be some bloke in a dressing gown”.
“The decorations I picked are a nautical theme – anchors away,” Tino said. “I’ve used soy sauce fish, metallic oil pastels, paint pens and “seaweed themed” paper.”
Tino will be sashaying down the catwalk at the four-wheel fashion parade later this month, showing that classic style is ageless. He’s been attending the respite centre for 12 months and enjoys painting and helping others. He said Pride Month was important.
“Treat everybody as equal,” he said. “Treat everyone with respect and inclusion. When you get older people just ignore you. Age with dignity and respect. I’m not one for sitting down and just letting disrespect go by. I will stand up.”
The genius behind the inaugural four-wheeled fashion parade is day the centre coordinator, who has a very personal reason for celebrating the walker.
“This is deeply personal to me because my Father died of a massive heart attack while pulling on his knee brace,” the coordinator said. “He was too proud to use a walker, to admit how much it hurt. Like many seniors, he carried a burden of shame that he ‘wasn’t the man he used to be’. Hopefully by personalising walkers for Pride Week we can de-stigmatise the use of mobility aids.”
Mobility aids sounds a bit clinical, perhaps zimmerframe sounds more suave and befitting of a red carpet. Look out Zendaya and other supermodels, this four-wheeled accessory is on trend.
“The purpose of the four-wheel fashion parade is to move the use of mobility aids from a medical and clinical intervention into a statement of identity,” the coordinator said. “By decorating walkers for and with our seniors, we want to make a statement of pride. It is an example of person-centered practice to recognise the individual identity of all our clients. At Burrangiri we want to celebrate seniors.”
Whether you’re 80 or 18, or if you live in Milan or Manuka, individual style is within us all. Some of the clients’ creations include “here comes the sun”, by a woman who loved the Beatles and was always fabulously dressed. Another client chose the theme “Scotland the brave” in honour of his country of birth.
Throughout Pride Month, clients at Burrangiri Aged Care Respite Centre will explore the themes of Pride and the “rainbow revolution” in group discussions. The reason why June is Pride Month is the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York. Although these weren’t the first protests against persecution of sexual minorities, they became a defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement around the world.
