You would think a global market forecast to be worth $350billion by 2024 would attract major investment from the fashion industry. When that market is adaptive clothing, created to be accessible to people with disabilities, sadly that isn’t the case. “[The fashion industry’s] being unforgivably slow,” says designer Victoria Jenkins, the founder of adaptive clothing brand Unhidden.
A fashion design graduate who worked as a garment technologist with brands such as Victoria Beckham and spent 14 years in the industry, she says, during that time, “I didn’t see or hear anything about disability [and how that pertains to fashion].” After life-saving surgery for a perforated ulcer in her stomach, Jenkins was left with mobility issues and chronic pain. She never, however, felt she could be open about her disability. “I described myself as having ‘chronic health issues’ because if I’d said ‘Disabled’, I wouldn’t have been hired.”
During a hospital visit in 2016, she met a cancer patient who had two stomas, a line in her arm and one in her chest so had to remove all her clothes every time doctors needed to treat her. It was then the idea for Unhidden was born. “The more I looked into it, the more I thought about how I could use everything I’d learned for a better cause. Working for Victoria Beckham was a dream job, but I wanted to be able to help people.”
Unhidden became the first adaptive brand – creating specially designed clothes for people with a disability – to join the British Fashion Council. “It makes me very proud, but it’s also terrible that I was the first – in 2022.” Jenkins firmly believes progress won’t happen unless it’s mandated. “Diversity has to include disability, therefore, one in five models working should be Disabled.” There are other issues, too; “so many brands use a Disabled model for a campaign, but they don’t use those photos on their website, and often they avoid the word ‘Disabled’ because they don’t want to offend. Being Disabled isn’t offensive, it’s a description.”
Jenkins also plans to launch a not-for-profit project training people with disabilities and chronic health conditions to sew adaptive alterations. It means people can set their rates and decide how much work they take on, and it serves the 80% of Disabled people who weren’t born with a disability and now need to alter their clothes to work for them. “There are heaps of people – myself included – who suddenly, overnight, can’t wear their clothes – clothes that we attach memories to. So rather than going through the trauma of throwing out an entire wardrobe, they can have it adapted by someone who understands why.” She will hit the runways of London Fashion Week later this year and is also working on a children’s range.
Like having shelter, being able to dress yourself is a basic human right. “It’s illegal to leave the house naked and go to work,” says Jenkins, “so it’s a crime that there are people who still can’t get dressed.” Fortunately, she is doing everything in her power to ensure that stops being the case.
Laura Potter is a journalist whose work has appeared in The Observer Magazine, The Guardian’s Saturday magazine, Men’s Health, Time Out and more
