We talk adaptive fashion with Victoria Jenkins
by Meg Pirie
This is an image of Victoria Jenkins, wearing a royal blue power suit, standing in the street, with a sparkly mobility aid. Credit: Deb Burrows.
Victoria Jenkins co-chairs our Representation and Inclusion Committee and is a garment technologist with 14 years of experience in the fashion industry who became Disabled in her 20s. She is behind the sustainable adaptive fashion brand Unhidden. The idea was born after a chance encounter with a woman with cancer that changed the course of her life. As she watched the woman during her own hospital stay, she realised that there were no adaptive clothes on the market and this is how Unhidden was born.
Now Victoria is listed as one of Vogue’s Top 25 Powerhouse Women, redefining Britain and co-presents and designs on Channel 4’s Unique Boutique. A must-watch where inclusive fashion lovers and designers create bespoke outfits for every-body in a custom-built shop.
We speak about future plans for a not-for-profit arm of Unhidden, training people with disabilities and chronic health conditions how to sew adaptive alterations so they can then work as and when they choose making adaptive alterations for any one who doesn't sew. There are also plans for workshops that will cover how to adapt clothing you already own yourself so there is no barrier to accessing adaptive clothing and re-loving your existing wardrobes.
Finally, Victoria shares her key policy asks to ultimately make fashion more inclusive.
I read a little about the reasons behind launching your brand ‘Unhidden’ can you explain a little more about the aha moment you had while in hospital and how the brand has gone from strength to strength?
I always have to talk about my career and then also my health to put things into context. I had a nearly life-threatening incident, an undiagnosed ulcer burst in 2012. That led to lots of hospital admissions and other surgeries and sorts. So that's why my aha moment did actually happen in hospital.
I was on a ward with this incredible woman who had survived ovarian cancer, but was left with two stomas and a line in her arm and she was there to have a medical line for her chest. And... it wasn't just that, she couldn't dress in hospital. She had to take everything off every time the doctors came around. And with so many things going on, it was generally at least six people and invariably male as well. So there was a modesty and dignity side to the light bulb moment as well. She couldn't dress how she wanted to at home and going out to social events, she just always felt like she wasn't herself and had to wear t-shirts and jogging bottoms so that she could access various parts of her or just to stop it from being painful.
So I started researching from a hospital bed and I saw people were really trying to fill a need, but I didn't feel like it represented what this woman was looking for. It wasn't very sustainable. It was all very Teflon. It was designed from a point of view of a carer, not from the wearer's perspective. And then the idea just didn't leave basically, so I kept at it.
In dismantling some of those barriers I read that you are proposing some workshops. Can you relay a little bit more about that?
So I want to be able to offer workshops so people can adapt their existing clothes because, we've got to slow down this vehicle of overproducing, but it's also the physical and the mental toll. 80% of the community acquire their disability like I did. So some people are leaving hospitals suddenly unable to wear their entire wardrobe, but it might be their favourite dress or something that they bought for themselves or that somebody else bought for them, that they have a lot of memories attached to. So the idea of not being able to wear it again breaks my heart. The flip side is we have what we call disability tax, which is you go and buy something that's close to what you need, and then you pay to adapt or alter it. So I'd like to be able to put the skillset into the community so they can do it themselves if they want to, or they can show it to someone else. It’s part of that reuse-recycle ethos, just from an adaptive perspective, because there are some really simple things that people can do to make their clothes fit a bit better.
What are the simple things?
It's adding in fabric for wheelchair users in the right place, so that it doesn't dig in and so you're actually shifting the angle of the seated area. It's buttonholes, just using openings in your pockets to feed tubes through so you're not going over waistbands, you're going through pockets. Really, really simple. And then making things elasticated also really helps. And then there's throwing darts in and using the right fabrics to start with as well.
I was reading something about how the adaptive fashion space is considered to grow in the next 10 years to be worth $400 billion by 2026. With that in mind, what do you think about the fashion industry in terms of inclusivity today?
Well, it isn't. For a start venues are not accessible. I think we're actually rolling back. Size diversity seems to be vanishing again, which is seriously frustrating – it's not inclusive. We're still using these really young models who are super thin – what is the point in trying to sell to people who are not your target consumer? The people buying this don't look like that. It's putting a minority as the desirable when that's not representative of any country, I don't think. So there's a very, very long way to go.
And I think the attitude and the stigma is still a real piece of work. Obviously the rise of Zebedee talent agency has had a positive influx in that so many different people are coming in. But they're still coming up against these barriers and these blocks as many of the venues are not accessible. Selfridges give their hotel to people with a disability to show in, but they couldn't take 25 disabled models and audience members. So I couldn't show them and I can't show them.
You co-present Channel 4's ‘Unique Boutique’ – I’d be interesting to hear a little bit about the process, how it came about and then learnings or opportunities from this.
I had the idea for a similar concept to the show and sent a little one-pager to a heap of people on LinkedIn. I got contacted just after International Women's Day in March of 2022 by the executive producer. It was an incredible process. It's very emotional to hear people’s stories and that's what I had to base the design work on. This stoked the raging fire – no one should be made to feel this awful by a shopping experience. No one should feel left out. When you already feel bad about yourself, you don't want to then go out and feel worse when you go shopping. Hugh, was fantastic, he made me realise that I was doing the same thing that he had done in that I wouldn't physically go shopping. I just generally tended to shop online. It was finding common ground with all the contributors and the amazing cast-mates. I mean, I'm in love with all of them. I think they're fantastic.
You co-chair our Representation and Inclusion Committee. As a final question could you share your top policy asks in advocating for the fashion sector to be more inclusive?
The biggest one is probably the boldest one and that is to mandate that 1 in 5 models on a runway have a disability visible or otherwise. If we don't mandate it, I don't believe it will happen, frankly.
A stronger policy around venues. Venues should be accessible and you should not be allowed to put an event on unless you are transparent about what the accessibility is.
Content must be accessible, if it's not accessible, it gets banned or revoked, or you've got to resubmit it. Alt text – it’s really easy and quite fun to do video captions; having BSL interpreters available at events. It’s about inviting the community and letting them know that they're welcome.
That the Equalities Act of 2010 is enforced more strongly.
For brands that want to get into this space now, the most meaningful way and the fastest way to do it is to collaborate with other adaptive designers. By working with consultants and designers who already know what they're doing, who have already done the work, ultimately means they can meaningfully bring it to the community.
This has been adapted and taken from our next podcast, between Meg Pirie and Victoria Jenkins – watch out for this, coming soon! The podcast will be fully transcribed.
To learn more about Victoria’s amazing work: