An interview with Unhidden Founder Victoria Jenkins
With a mission to bring inclusive fashion to the high street, Victoria Jenkins founded Unhidden to create adaptive and universal designs for every body - specifically the disabled community. These people have been routinely left out of the fashion, but, in partnership with Sook, Victoria has brought Unhidden into the mainstream with pop-up shops in Cambridge and London's Oxford Street.
Victoria became disabled in her mid-twenties, and having worked in the fashion industry for 14 years - predominantly as a garment technologist for suppliers, high street and high end brands - she founded Unhidden and has never looked back.
Making adaptive fashion mainstream
Unhidden took over the Cambridge Sook space every Sunday for three months, while also popping up weekly in our Oxford Street space in London. In addition to promoting and selling her own designs, Victoria invited other brands into the space to share the experience and engage with the wider community.
Victoria explained:
“Sook definitely gave Unhidden a bigger platform - not least because I could also invite other adaptive brands in with me for talks and events… It is a lot of work, but it is also fun and a great way to create content and raise brand profile.”
The London and Cambridge events were a huge success, after which the adaptive clothing brand then returned to host a Models of Diversity fashion show in Oxford Street. The event showcased clothing from some of the best adaptive clothing brands in the world: Reset, Lora Gene, Chamiah Dewey, Fiit Me, Origin, Kintsugu and, of course, some of Unhidden’s own collection.
Stepping into the light
Unhidden booked with Sook after seeing the collaboration between Sook and Enterprise Nation. Victoria says: “I liked the idea of being able to make real life connections with people and show them up close the range. Also as disability has no representation on the highstreet it was also to raise awareness and make people consider what they are missing out on by not being inclusive.”
Future Plans for Unhidden
“There are so many amazing things happening - a lot of collaborations, which I am SUPER excited about because it means expansion of the range as well as a bigger reach - and I love working with other companies!
I’m also now in my first stage of capital raising which is really nerve wracking but awesome because I want to bring in other people in my community who are much better than me at the things I am having to do to keep this show on the road - my skill set is in design not marketing, accounts or warehousing.
More events are coming up too with fashion week in June and September and Unhidden is also in a fashion show at the end of April in Birmingham for a modelling agency up there.”
