Cropped coats, stoma access and magnetic zips: Primark launches first-ever range for people with disabilities
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Victoria Jenkins, the co-designer of the collection and founder of adaptive clothing brand Unhidden, tells The Independent about design features that range from magnetic zippers to hidden openings for tube, stoma or catheter access. Primark is Britain’s one-stop-shop for stocking up on cheap underwear and pyjamas, but it’s now the UK’s first high street brand to launch a full-scale clothing range designed for people with a range of disabilities.
![[Trousers feature waist loops that help to pull up trousers for people with stomas]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/11/newFile-1.jpg)
The new collection has been designed in collaboration with Victoria Jenkins, a disabled fashion designer and founder of the adaptive clothing brand Unhidden, with the aim of making dressing simpler and more stylish, with adaptive features including magnetic zippers, snap fastenings, waist loops that help to pull up trousers and hidden openings for tube, stoma or catheter access.
![[A woman’s dress featuring a discrete zip for stoma access]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/12/newFile.jpg)
The collection – the first of its kind from a high street retailer – includes a smart, white women’s poplin shirt (£18) that features accessible openings for tubes, a men’s straight-leg jean (£14), which features magnetic button closures, waistband pulls and tube-access pockets, and a women’s trench coat (£40), which comes with magnetic-fastening pockets and is available in a cropped version for people who are seated.
For the seated version of the trench, Jenkins, the garment technologist-turned-designer who founded Unhidden in 2016, ensured adaptions were made so that the material didn’t rub on the wheels of a manual wheelchair. “What I love about it is that it just looks like a cropped trench – anyone could wear that and no one would know what we’ve built into it,” she told The Independent. “You can change the width of the hem, there’s snap fastenings on both sides so you can reduce the hem so it doesn’t graze over the wheels,” she explains. “It also means that they’re not sat on excess fabric that they don’t need.”.
