This summer, at the height of bathing suit season, Chromat drafted up a list of 10 pool rules in keeping with the label’s defiant, exuberantly inclusive spirit. “Intolerance Not Tolerated.” “Celebrate Cellulite.” “Body Policing Prohibited.” Tonight, designer Becca McCharen put those rules into practice with a Spring 2019 show in sync with the endless summer weather. A hijab-wearing model covered up, while the breast cancer survivor Ericka Hart zipped down, revealing scars to the crowd through her plunging maillot. Along with a cross section of shapes and skin tones and LGBTQ+ identities, the lineup honored another rule—“All Abilities Accepted”—with the New York Fashion Week debut of model Mama Cax, who lit up the runway in a yellow-and-black swim look and a perforated white prosthetic leg that echoed the performance-minded textiles.
“I’ve always loved what the brand represents, and the diversity of their models,” says Cax, a 28-year-old New York native who spent time in Haiti growing up. If this Chromat collection riffs on the wet-T-shirt theme—an allusion to the cover-ups employed by body-shamed teens, and a subversive nod to the drooled-over bikini contests—Cax has her own perspective on the matter. Diagnosed at 14 with bone and lung cancer, she lost her right leg soon after with an amputation at the hip. “I probably waited a good three years before going to a swimming pool or even the beach,” she recalls, “and that was mostly due to the fact that I was never comfortable in my body.”
In the intervening years, Cax has found her sense of self—and her sense of style—by trading in prosthetic covers as one would any other accessory. This month, she landed the cover of Teen Vogue, along with two other voices in the disabled community, Jillian Mercado and Chelsea Werner. “The messages I’ve been getting since [the story dropped], I’m getting chills just talking about it,” Cax explains, her mermaid-blue-rimmed eyes punctuated with yellow dots, courtesy of the makeup artist Fatima Thomas. “I was doing an event the other day with a lot of girls with limb differences and in wheelchairs,” Cax continues. “They never see someone who looks like them on the cover of a magazine or on a runway, so for them, it means quite a lot.”
Another thing they might not typically see: a one-legged woman surfing. “I was very athletic before my surgery, and after I wanted to keep that going, so I found different adaptive sports,” says Cax, who got into wheelchair basketball and rock climbing. “Surfing was the next thing that I took on. I’m still learning, still pushing myself.” Organizations like Surf For All and Challenged Athletes Foundation are good starting points for people with disabilities, she explains; now, she tries to hit the water once a month during warm weather.
Of course, Chromat brought its own splash: wet T-shirts, yes, as well as swim caps paired with high ponytails and stylized baby hairs (slicked down by hairstylist Kien Hoang using handfuls of Oribe Gel Serum). Lady Fancy Nails embellished manicures with dangling acrylic beads mimicking water droplets, an effect dramatized on the runway by the models who twirled their fingertips and blew kisses at the cameras. As for Cax’s aquatic touch? She wrapped a string of tiny blue lights around her prosthetic leg. Consider it a bright start to the week ahead.
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