Revealed...and looking good

Channel 4 show How to Look Good Naked starts the New Year with three programmes featuring disabled women. Host Gok Wan, who was initially unsure about including disability in the show, bares all to Lara Masters

Before making the shows with my women with disabilities I had concerns about not understanding their disability and I panicked. I’ve always felt that my approach towards styling my clients and towards the fashion industry comes from a different angle to other stylists because having been obese I – without disrespect to anyone – have lived with my own disability and with prejudice against me. I couldn’t fit into normal clothes or have a normal life, but of course I’m able-bodied and always have been, so how was I going to get under the skin of disabled women? At the first ‘Mirror Moment’ I realised my
approach to the girls had been very naive; I didn’t need to understand their disability, I just needed to understand them as women.”

Di Cram, 50, who is blind, Tracey Warren, 40, who uses a wheelchair and Clare Smith, 44, who wears a prosthetic leg, all stripped off and gave Gok a crash course in disability awareness.

“I knew I was going to say and do things wrong so I asked the girls to tell me when I was being offensive and how I should hold them. When it came to styling, I divided their concerns into two camps; in one was body dysmorphia – why they didn’t like their boobs, stomach or getting a bit older – in the other was how the disability had affected their body or made their body develop in a different way. We didn’t ignore their disability. For a long time the girls have had a stiff upper lip and gone: ‘Well if everyone around me thinks I’m okay with my disability then I’m okay with my disability’ when in fact they haven’t discussed it. Then we looked at changing the way they see their bodies. I would never have imagined prior to making this series that I could ever compare an amputated leg to a sagging stomach but if you break it right down to the basics, why not?”

Gok had to tackle styling issues completely differently with his disabled clients, especially with someone who is blind: “Di was a particularly interesting show for me because being a fashion stylist dealing with aesthetics, I had to find ways to give her back some sight. When she first came in she described herself as ‘square and broad’ and in particular she hated her stomach because when she felt it, she said she had two tummies. I simply pulled her knickers up as for years she’d been wearing her knickers too tight so they’d been digging into her and creating two stomachs but no one had told her.

“As Di hasn’t seen for 37 years, she doesn’t know about rich, computerised colours or modern clothing cuts. I brought her up to date by making a textured colour chart, a Perspex body of her shape and different cuts of clothing which when placed on the model activate a talking device describing the clothes. Now when she goes shopping she can tell the assistant what she wants, and the decisions that were made by people around her she can make herself. She’s got her independence back.”

It’s abundantly clear that Gok has been inspired by his brush with disability: “Making these shows really re-established my love for Naked and the message we’re giving because sometimes I can get lost with all the press, media and fame.”

The pinnacle of the filming was a naked photo-shoot with 11 disabled women: “There was more humour in the room than on any other show I’ve done and one girl, Sam, who has restricted growth, had the most beautiful body I’d ever seen. She was really nervous about getting undressed and said that because people haven’t seen bodies like hers before, she was afraid they were going to find it disgusting but I was just in awe of this body, it was so beautifully formed. After the shoot I called my producer and said: ‘How are we ever going to make another How to Look Good Naked to top that?’ Every part of it was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.”

I promised not to “reveal” too much but Gok told me these shows are some of his biggest successes of all time. “Really?” I respond. “With disabled women? Who’d have guessed?!”

• How to Look Good Naked, Channel 4, on 19th, 26th January and 2nd February.