Victoria Jenkins says the industry is ‘very late’ to realise what is needed

MAJOR fashion houses are consistently failing to create clothing lines for their disabled customers, a designer has said this week, amid warnings the “industry has a lot to answer for.”

Victoria Jenkins started Unhidden, an “adaptable” fashion brand for disabled people, from her basement flat in Barnsbury in 2016.

Throughout her 20s Ms Jenkins worked for a variety of fashion houses, like All Saints and Victoria Beckham, as a garment technologist or “clothing engineer”.

Ms Jenkins became disabled after undergoing “life-saving surgery” when an undiagnosed stomach ulcer burst in 2012, leaving her with a series of gastrointestinal conditions as well as chronic pain. After her surgery she found it difficult to wear her own wardrobe.

“Eighty percent of people are not born disabled,” Ms Jenkins said. “Almost overnight you can’t wear your entire wardrobe.”

The idea for a universal fashion brand came several years later, when Ms Jenkins met a woman who had survived cancer during a hospital stay.

“She had two stoma bags,” Ms Jenkins said. “She told me she couldn’t dress for her work or go out looking how she wanted to. She said she never felt like she looked good.”

This encounter led Ms Jenkins to research disability-friendly fashion outlets.

“I had a look at the landscape in the UK and it was bleak – nothing was aimed at young people, sustainability wasn’t a thing.”

Shortly after Ms Jenkins quit her job with Victoria Beckham to design a line of “universal” clothes with special adaptations for those with disabilities, such as added zips for easy accessibility, elasticated waistlines for comfort, and seated versions of trousers for wheelchair users.

With most brands failing to design effectively for disabled people, Ms Jenkins said many in the disabled community are often limited to “loungewear”. “

Not being able to get dressed to work in a formal place has been holding us back,” she said, adding her customers say it is “nice to feel smart and dress up again.”

She said the culture in major fashion houses has long been to ignore the needs of the disabled community.

“It’s an attitudinal thing. We’ve almost sleepwalked into it – the community doesn’t know to demand better. [Disabled people] have accepted brands don’t care,” Ms Jenkins said.

““If you don’t have disabled people in a fashion office, [designers] won’t think about it and they won’t do it.”

She added that while large brands are starting to say disability-friendly fashion is “on their radar”, she would say to them: “You’re very late. The industry has a lot to answer for.

“In major fashion, there’s a cost in not doing it. The purple pound is worth £13bn a year, and the UK high street loses £267m a month because it’s not accessible.”

According to Ms Jenkins, fashion is about far more than the clothes you wear. “If you can’t choose what you look like, you won’t feel like yourself,” she added.

“I think it’s how we communicate to other people without saying anything.

“The denial of that choice to the disabled community is what makes me very angry and keeps me going – it’s a basic human right.”