Unhidden - Professional and adaptive clothing inclusive of people with disabilities.
Unhidden is a universal fashion line created with the purpose of inclusion for people living with disabilities. We spoke to Founder, Victoria Jenkins, about how she’s planning on growing her brand. With 1 billion disabled people worldwide, Victoria seeks to create not just a garment, but the chance to give wheelchair users, amputees, people with gastrointestinal conditions and many others the same expressive freedom and dignity as everyone else.
Could you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind Unhidden and how it all started off?
For context, I always have to tell my story alongside how/why I founded Unhidden; because that's how it all came about. I studied fashion design, graduating in 2008 and went straight into a seven-month internship with a very creative designer. My first paid job was as a pattern cutter, and then I fell into being a garment technologist which is like a clothing engineer. I'd never heard of garment technology as they didn't cover it at my university- it’s a little known role that is integral to any fashion brand however. I worked for suppliers that sold to a lot of the UK high street shops, so Tesco, Phase Eight and various places like that. I then moved into working directly for brands. I worked with Jack Wills, All Saints, Victoria Beckham and then went freelance working for Sweaty Betty, ME+EM and did various six months contracts – but in the background to all this I was having surgeries and was really unwell; in 2012 I had an undiagnosed ulcer that burst.
After a little bit of life saving surgery I thought I would just get better, but it just led to being diagnosed with one thing after the other, lots more surgeries and bits of me being removed. Trying to hold down a nine-to-five fashion job was hard under the circumstances so my career was more about security and survival than what I really wanted to do. I hadn’t heard about adaptive fashion at that point, like a lot of my community still don’t.
I just accepted that I either wouldn't go out, or I would wear loose clothing, loungewear, pajamas or wear really uncomfortable clothing and inevitably have to leave an event early because I was in pain from what I was wearing.
In 2016 I was in hospital again and there was a woman on my ward who made me actually think about adaptive fashion; she had survived ovarian cancer but as is often the case after life threatening illness, she was left with a number of other life long conditions. She had two stomas and a line in her arm for medicine and was there to be fitted for a port in her chest.
She couldn't dress how she wanted and always had to be casual in the office. Even at home she couldn't dress how she wanted or dress up for her social life. She had to get naked a lot of the time in hospital just to access a part of her body. As soon as she told me all this, I thought, it seems obvious, somebody must have solved this already?! I started looking from my own hospital bed and the landscape for adaptive fashion in 2016 was pretty bleak. It was a real lightbulb moment for me; I thought, let's use everything that I've learned from over a decade in the industry for a better purpose.
I registered the company in 2017 but I inevitably ended up too busy with freelance clients and managing my health to also start a brand. It wasn’t until 2020, with no clients and no other demands on my energy that I could focus and make real progress.
I finally launched in November 2020 after doing my first shoot in September- which is hands down one of the best memories I will ever have I think. As a visible and credible brand Unhidden is definitely right up there now even with a global reach; but due to the nature of being made to order, not having a sales or marketing background and being ‘only’ one person- sales to date have not been as I’d hoped but there are so many factors at play and it’s pretty rare for a new brand to be in profit by its second year- especially in what is considered a ‘new’ area of the industry.
There are however so many amazing collaborations coming up and that's all been from me working as hard as I can to get attention on not just the brand but the rights of the disabled and chronic sick community to be included in fashion. I am the first adaptive brand to join the British Fashion Council, which is lovely (if a bit bitter because it should already be common practise especially from a sustainability point of view).
2. What kind of research goes into the construction of the garments so that they work and that they're really inclusive?
I spent years asking every body I could, asking nurses when I was in hospital, asking people online across social media platforms and I start from a place of, ‘What's the design?’ ‘What do I want it to look like?’ And then, ‘What do I want it to do?’
I've tried to include as many disabilities and needs as I can include per garment; disability is a broad spectrum and what works for some won’t work for others which is why I want to keep the customisable option in as we grow. One size doesn't fit all, so there's still so much room to develop it. So far, the feedback has been really really good. There are more things that I want to do with the range not least bringing in some colour! Outerwear, lingerie, footwear and sensory clothing is something I'm looking at now and also developing kids clothing. The process is just constantly asking people and, where possible, showing them what it does and saying, what more do you need it to do?
I stay curious, I seek feedback and I seek a variety of opinions- I also look at other adaptive brands feedback and see what their customers are saying.
3. What is sensory development and how would you be creating something in response to that?
Sensory clothing is targeted at people with a range of neurodivergent conditions; not limited to but including autism, ADHD and learning disabilities. Commonly the consensus is that people don't like labels within clothing so for Unhidden all the labels are optional - you can literally pull them out if you don’t want them. Then it is about using seams like ‘flat locking’, which you see on a lot of sportswear, because it doesn’t chafe or rub. There seems to be a desire generally for T-shirts to be lower at the neck with a wider neck trim and they also want moderate compression OR a boxy loose fit. It's really interesting. There are some commonalities that sort of affect all of them, but it's going to take a while to get it all right.
The fabric is also really important for both sensory and all other conditions; from temperature control to microbial properties to stretch and non slip.
Unhidden uses deadstock fabric, which is fabric that would otherwise go to landfill. It's leftover from other companies which means sometimes I can’t get exact colour matches- it’s also why the core range is in black and white, the 2 most common colours for deadstock cloth.
“The process is just constantly asking people and, where possible, showing them what it does and saying, what more do you need it to do?”
4. Could you talk to us about why your line is targeted at young professionals?
When it comes to representation and inclusion and when we talk about disability, it's always very medical, very ‘older people’. It's certainly not seen as very glamorous, and I think that is because there is the assumption that we don't work, don’t have social lives, don’t have relationships; don’t fall in love even.
I felt that loungewear already exists and is by its very nature quite adaptive; so I wanted to design something that was more formal, more polished, more stylish. I regularly see the portrayal of disability as always in pajamas and jogging bottoms and I wanted to change that narrative; a lot of the time that is all we CAN wear because no one is designing for our bodies.
5. How do you factor sustainability into your collections?
I don't want to be part of the problem when it comes to the fashion industry and climate change.
It’s much easier for me to build sustainability in from the start than trying to convert an existing supply chain, which is a problem that the bigger brands have.
I just keep it simple. As I mentioned, the fabric is leftover from other brands, so I'm just using up what we already have. It is sourced from a deadstock market in Bulgaria, where the factory is; and that’s it- that is the supply chain.
The ultimate goal would actually be to have a factory in every single country that I was selling in so that it's being sourced locally and made locally. But these are very big ambitious goals, for when I've got the funds and also the demand.. So we'll see!
6. Your products are quite expensive. How do you make sure that these items are affordable for those who would benefit?
This is the constant conundrum. On the product description I include a breakdown of what it costs to get them made and once you factor in proper shipping, I'm pretty much making it at cost. It's not profitable in its current iteration, but it was important to try and see if it could work. I signed with Klarna so that people can pay in instalments.
If you're only buying one or two meters of fabric at a time it's more expensive per metre than when you buy 100- and that's just to get the fabric. To get it made, plus all the trims and shipping to get it here… This all costs when you do it responsibly.
However this range is exceptionally good value for customizable, well made, long lasting fashion that fits and works for more bodies than the standard; we have to learn that if we only pay £5 for a t-shirt, someone somewhere is paying for it- either planet or through under paid labour.
But yes, price point is a problem, which is why I'm moving to small production runs once I have investors and we'll start making just 100 of each design across sizes and a few colours. I'm not going to over produce because that was the other reason for doing made to order; I’d rather only make what I have sold instead of holding lots of stock which in itself is costly.
The consumer mindset is still very much stuck in fast fashion, so I'm asking them to change an awful lot, to wait longer and pay more. But I think it’s worth a try.
Once I start buying in wholesale prices, my price can come right down. I will instantly knock £20 off every single garment and increase the profit margin I have.
7. What has been the most important lesson you've had to learn as the founder and the designer of this fashion line?
I think it's very difficult to continually be shouting up to an industry that doesn't want to speak to you. I think that's a lesson in not giving up – even with small sales, ignorance in the industry and media and trying to get the word out to the disabled and chronic sick community that they DO have options and choice - Unhidden is not the first nor the only adaptive fashion brand in the UK or the world. We are more resilient than we think and following your passion truly leads to great things. If you believe in it; so will other people.
I think it’s also being open to collaboration and networking, not gate keeping or hiding plans. I have been surprised by how much networking to strangers has been the cornerstone of what I do; I want to spend my time designing!
I also think the biggest mistake I think I made was not being confident enough in myself; my fear of putting myself out there is also part of why it’s taken so long between founding to trading. I wish I'd had the courage to do it sooner. I think that's been one of the harder lessons. If I had started sooner at that point, I would have been able to get a loan from the bank, but because now I've been working on this solidly for two years with no income, no bank is set up to give loans or grants that way; and this is a huge problem for disabled entrepreneurs.
I've had a bit of a scattergun approach – seeing what works and what doesn't and experimenting with it – not being afraid or embarrassed when things don't work out. I did a pop-up shop for three months in two locations. I think I sold about two things in that entire time, but that again was because I didn't have stock, it was a pandemic and I was over stretched. I was expecting people to place an order based on something they couldn’t see at a time they didn’t feel safe to leave the house. I’ve also had to do a lot more marketing and while I have ideas the execution is very different. I understand that now and I know exactly what the problem is, I know exactly what I need other, better people to do- but it all costs money.
8. What have you got planned for Unhidden for the next two to five years?
So much – I’ve done a collaboration with Lucy & Yak using their unsold stock but adaptively upcycling it; I am launching a t-shirt with Origin Africa the UK’s first not for profit brand and I have the massive support from Kurt Geiger- who knows what we may do beyond the runway show. I've also got the licensing rights to PAW Patrol and SpongeBob SquarePants; the only adaptive brand in the world to have that; I'm going to be using that on kids wear in 2023.
I'm also doing a collaboration with a Paralympic swimmer, Will Perry, which we will launch in February at the runway show.
I really want to do footwear because there's only five or six adaptive footwear companies in the world, and they all do trainers, I don't generally wear trainers, so the next stage is product categories and more and more collaborations really. I also want to work with other brands or high street brands to try and make inclusive design more affordable and more normalized. That's the real mission.
The plan is to have a bigger offering to bring the prices down and to just try and help as many, more distant, disabilities as I can within the range.
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