27-Year-Old Kenyan Designer Wanjiku Is Pioneering Sustainable Fashion for the Visually Impaired—And Advancing A Movement for Disability Inclusion

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Season 1 | Episode 9

Wanjiku Angela isn’t just designing clothes—she’s dismantling barriers. As the founder of Hisi Studio, a game-changing Kenyan fashion brand, she’s reimagining what truly inclusive and sustainable design looks like. This conversation isn’t just about fashion—it’s about revolution.

Wanjiku breaks down how she’s weaving tactile elements, braille, research, and 3D printing into her creations, ensuring that visually impaired individuals aren’t just accommodated but centered. She doesn’t hold back on the hard truths either—calling out the systemic challenges in funding, advocacy, and the deep-rooted stigmas that have long erased disabled voices from Africa’s creative industries.

This episode is a wake-up call for the sustainability movement: True circularity isn’t just about materials—it’s about people. Hissi Studio is proving that innovation, disability inclusion, and cultural regeneration aren’t extras—they’re essential. The future of fashion must be adaptive, radically inclusive, and socially conscious at its core. Wanjiku is already planting the seeds—are we ready to grow with her?

MORE ABOUT WANJIKU

Wanjiku is a Kenyan multi-disciplinary designer & researcher. Her work is motivated by a strong belief in design as a tool for problem-solving and as a way to enhance interactions between people and the things they use & the spaces they occupy. An accessible design champion, Wanjiku is the founder & creative director of the inclusive lifestyle brand, Hisi Studio, which leverages, rethinks and includes the needs of visually impaired fashion consumers through co-design and the integration of assistive technology. 

Her efforts in PWD advocacy included conducting disability & braille literacy awareness programs: with a reach of 800+ Primary School & Secondary school learners and 600+ adults in Thika through organized meetings & church congregations. Hisi Studio has succesfully showcased at the 2024 & 2023 editions of the Nairobi DesignWeek Festival with a first-of-its-kind, Braille interactive play installation made from sustainable local materials. Wanjiku also created a ‘Please Touch’ Tactile Brailled Textile displayed at the 2024 State of Fashion Nairobi SiteTRADITIONAL Exhibition. Wanjiku greatly values collaboration. She has worked with interdisciplinary teams on a range of human-centered projects, including mapping air pollution and sensing air quality, as well as maternal health care for postpartum hemorrhage and children's school attendance in remote parts of the country. She is a Master of Arts-Design candidate majoring in Industrial Design at the University of Nairobi.

For her undergraduate program in design, Wanjiku focused on textiles and apparel design. She also holds a Braille Proficiency certificate from the Kenya Institute of Special Education.

“I started out desiring to run a fashion brand. But slowly it seemed clear to me that what we were doing was more than fashion. It has now became advocacy.”

— Wanjiku