Accessibility Statement

Our commitment

We design and build the Site with accessibility as a first-class concern, not an afterthought. We believe that an editorial archive of independent fashion should be readable by anyone curious about it, regardless of how they use the web.

Standard we target

We target conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). WCAG 2.1 AA is the reference standard cited by the US Department of Justice for Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, by the EU Web Accessibility Directive, and by the UK Equality Act 2010 guidance.

We treat WCAG 2.1 AA as a floor, not a ceiling. Where a heuristic suggests a higher bar (for example, exceeding minimum contrast ratios on editorial copy, or supporting full keyboard navigation on the catalogue browser), we apply it.

Steps we take

Concretely, we:

• Author semantic HTML with appropriate landmarks (header, nav, main, footer) and heading levels.
• Provide text alternatives for product photographs and editorial imagery, and skip non-essential decorative images from the accessible name tree.
• Ensure keyboard operability for catalogue browsing, product selection, account, address, and checkout flows.
• Manage focus on modals, drawers, and the cart, and return focus to the originating element on close.
• Choose the editorial palette so body copy clears the WCAG AA contrast ratio, and check pairings by hand when the palette changes.
• Support locale switching across English, simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, with language attributes set per page.
• Avoid auto-playing media, motion that cannot be paused, and animation that violates a user's prefers-reduced-motion setting.

Two things we want to be precise about, because an accessibility statement is worth nothing if it describes an aspiration as a practice. Contrast is checked manually, not by an automated rule in our build pipeline — an earlier version of this Statement claimed the latter, and that was not accurate. And we do not yet run a scheduled screen-reader regression pass against every release; we test with assistive technology when we build or substantially change a flow, and we prioritise reported barriers over a fixed calendar.

We do not auto-fix accessibility with a third-party overlay widget; in our experience overlays mask issues rather than resolve them and can interfere with assistive technology a visitor already uses.

Known limitations

We will be candid about what we have not yet finished:

• Some pre-launch editorial wings still use long photographic captions where the caption text duplicates information already encoded by the surrounding figure; this is queued for cleanup.
• The catalogue browser supports keyboard navigation across product cards, but the secondary "filters" drawer is in the process of having its focus-trap reviewed.
• Customer-update emails are sent as both HTML and plain-text, but a few transactional templates still need their plain-text version regenerated.
• Some product imagery sourced from original sellers does not yet have rich alt text. We generate alt text from the product metadata as a fallback while we author bespoke alternatives.

We update this list as items close and as new issues are reported.

Report a barrier

If you encounter a part of the Site you cannot use, or a feature that does not work with your assistive technology, we want to know. Email support@vivyveil.com with the subject "Accessibility:" and tell us, in as much or as little detail as feels comfortable:

• The page or URL you were on.
• The action you were trying to take.
• What did not work, and what assistive technology or input method you were using.

We aim to acknowledge accessibility reports within two business days. Where the report concerns a flow you are trying to complete right now (signing in, placing an order, tracking a shipment), we will respond more urgently and, where helpful, complete the action on your behalf over email.

Formal complaints

If you have raised an accessibility concern with us and are not satisfied with our response, you may also contact the accessibility regulator in your jurisdiction. In the United States this is typically the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. In the European Union the relevant national enforcement body is identified on the European Commission's accessibility page. In the United Kingdom the Equality and Human Rights Commission handles complaints under the Equality Act 2010.

Review and updates

We review this Statement at least annually and after any material redesign of the Site. The "Effective" date above reflects the current version.