In the picture

Even a short conversation with All is for All (AIFA) co-founder Grace Stratton is illuminating. When the 21-year-old takes Good’s call, she’s rushing to a lecture at AUT, where she’s studying law and communications. But in just 15 minutes she still manages to succinctly convey the import of the work All is for All is doing to drive change for disabled people.

After recounting a recent news story about a disabled woman who was told by a recruiter that the only way she would be employed is if “someone felt bad”, Grace responds: “Perceptions are constantly perpetuated that being disabled is a negative trait or something to be avoided. But, of course, what that does is actually further disable a person from reaching their potential.”

And that’s where All is for All comes in, in a now multi-faceted approach: communications, which involves accessible strategy and working with clients to produce campaigns that focus around inclusion; a global content production arm, called Amplify, developed by disabled people and powered by AUT; and, finally, a talent agency, a response to the deficit of disabled models on traditional modelling agencies’ books, which became apparent when All is for All was looking for people for its own campaigns.

The modelling side of the business is pretty fitting, as it was New Zealand Fashion Week when the first seeds of this now thriving business first germinated. Grace approached the “Beyoncé of New Zealand fashion”, Angela Bevan of communications agency SweeneyVesty – with whom All is for All is now partnered – with an idea for a designer clothing