By Liz Kowalsky
When your career is coaching college football and you spend two hours outside of practice exercising every day, one of the last concerns on your mind is being diagnosed with a serious medical condition. The unthinkable happened to Don Horton, however, when he was informed he had Parkinson’s disease. Don’s diagnosis not only led to changes with his body, career and life; it inspired his wife Maura to return to the workforc and become an entrepreneur and inventor of MagnaReady. MagnaReady is the first fashionable dress shirt infused with a magnetic closure system designed specifically for people with limited mobility and dexterity.
The shirts contain self-closing technology that eliminates the need to button a shirt. Wearers simply press the two sides of the shirt-front together and it snaps the magnets into place. This is the first adaptable fashion technology to go mainstream.
Prior to Maura inventing the MagnaReady shirt, she had been a stay-at-home mom for 10 years. Running the business out of her home allows Maura to have flexible hours and the ability to greet her kids when they get home from school. Although MagnaReady is a home-based business, they are an e-commerce platform.
Maura attends many meetings and travels often to help promote and discuss what MagnaReady’s mission is. In addition to the in-house MagnaReady product line of dress shirts for men and women and outerwear for children, MagnaReady also licenses its patented magnetic closure technology to businesses including PVH (Phillip Van Heusen), one of the world’s largest apparel companies, and Runway of Dreams, a nonprofit organization that collaborates with the fashion industry to adapt mainstream clothing for communities that have disabilities.
MagnaReady’s customers range from ages 16 to 104. The shirts help a diverse group of people, from baby boomers that may suffer from arthritis to the limited mobility community. By licensing the technology to PVH and Runway of Dreams, they have been able to help such a larger number of people with limited mobility. These partnerships are so important not only because of the business aspect; the education to consumers is a big part of Maura and MagnaReady’s message. In the years to come, Maura is going to continue to work hard and educate people that fashionable adaptive clothing is a possibility for everyone. Visit www.magnaready.com/shop/.
