Adaptive fashion – clothing designed to accommodate disabled individuals, such as by utilising zips for people who have a stoma bag – is here to stay, and this London Fashion Week proved it. Estimated to be worth £13.7 billion, this number is only set to grow. The fashion industry has responded in kind. Primark has launched the game changing Primark Adaptive range, while other designers are finally doing it for themselves. But what is it like to design for the world’s largest minority group, to be a part of a newly emerging market?
Hanan Tantush is 23, and the founder of Intotum. It was witnessing a relative’s recovery that inspired her to set up the label: “My grandad’s experience living with a stoma after cancer treatment made me realise how much clothing impacts dignity and independence, and how overlooked disabled people have been in fashion. Combined with my own neurodivergence, it shaped how I see design; fashion should support people, not create barriers, which naturally led me to adaptive design.”
This is your cheat sheet for this winter.
Intotum’s offering includes a backless wheelchair-friendly trench coat, which also includes a removable hood. It’s a favourite design she’s most proud of: “Seeing customers wearing it all over the world is incredibly rewarding. It represents exactly what we aim for: Adaptive fashion that works beautifully in real life.” Clothing is a core part of how we express ourselves, she notes, and seeing disabled people being able to dress themselves is “deeply emotional to me as a designer.” She also calls for the fashion industry to improve its inclusion: “The industry needs to create more opportunities for disabled people across design and modelling and recognise adaptive design as an essential part of fashion, not a niche add-on. True inclusion should sit at the heart of the ecosystem.”
Victoria Jenkins, 40, is the founder and CEO of Unhidden. She, too, began her journey following a similar experience like Tantush’s: “I was in one of many hospital stays in 2016 when a fellow patient said to me she couldn't dress how she wanted to – and I realised I had held myself back from events or left them when a piece of clothing caused pain and that this was a hugely underserved market. I drew on my years as a pattern cutter, garment technologist and designer to start developing my first range.”
Jenkins’ label has since been on the main schedule of London Fashion Week last year in debuting her new collection, with a policy to only use disabled models. A particular highlight was a pair of leopard print barrel leg jeans, which include features such as a catheter pocket, tube openings and an elasticated waistband.
But after almost a decade of trading, what is it like to see her community in her designs? “Seeing my community be able to dress themselves how THEY want to brings me endless joy but also motivation to keep going – it should already be the standard not the exception. Every happy face, every positive review.. It helps me. This is not an easy job or industry and there are times that I question myself and whether I should keep going or not.”
She adds: “There are so many ways the industry can improve but the first place is to START including us – I actually want to mandate that all fashion shows have 1 out of 4 models with a disability – I just don't see designers practising allyship unless forced to. And then within education and head office roles they need to start hiring and working with us; we're one of the most creative groups of people and we have serious value to add to any industry. Finally retailers have got to fix up their physical and digital spaces; anything less is lip service and we need real, consistent action.”
Chamiah Dewey, founder of Dewey, is 27 – and decided to demonstrate her own allyship. Before studying fashion design in 2018, she met a young person of short stature: “Talking to them about fashion made me realise how little of the market truly catered to people shorter than average height. That was my lightbulb moment: the idea to create a clothing brand specifically for women who were petite.” Dewey has evolved to a brand for women under 5’2”, with the shortest size at 4 feet, unlike competitors.
Gender-based violence is not inevitable.
The end of 2025 saw Dewey launch a denim range, an area more problematic for petite and extra-petite women; lengths are too long, proportions rarely fit their frame. It is “incredibly rewarding” to see, she notes. Dewey adds: “Something that I have never taken for granted is the privilege that I have in being able to watch our customers go from being uncertain, untrusting and a bit nervous about the petite fashion industry; to trying on our pieces for the first time and finally feeling empowered and represented. So it’s something that I am incredibly proud of and it is the thing that motivates me to continue every day.”
Like Jenkins and Tantush, she believes there is more to be done: “The fashion industry still has a long way to go to become truly inclusive. I believe we need to move towards an approach where collections are designed with specific customer archetypes and demographics in mind. This allows brands to serve a wider range of people and acknowledge the many intersections of identity and body type, because no one is one-size-fits-all.”
