SIC’s Career Spotlights: Victoria Jenkins
Victoria Jenkins is the Founder and CEO of ‘Unhidden’, an innovative, adaptive clothing brand that was created in 2016. She’s an experienced technologist, an accomplished public speaker and a published writer. She advocates for disability inclusion in all aspects of her work, and is passionate about inclusive design for the disabled and chronically ill communities.
What motivated you to set up your company?
I first started thinking about adaptive design in July of 2016 when I met a fellow patient who was telling me she couldn’t find ‘nice’ workwear, couldn’t dress up and most importantly, couldn’t access her own body without removing clothing. I was so sure that someone would be designing clothing like this, so I started searching from my own hospital bed. I didn’t find much, especially within the UK. Very little choice, nothing sustainable and limited representation of younger people with disabilities. The landscape has changed since then thankfully but progress is still slow. I registered Unhidden in 2017 and went freelance from my job but then had too much work for clients to push it much further until last year. Clothing, and how we present to the world is so important, and I just couldn’t bear that so many people, literally millions of people, are denied that right.
How do you think being disabled has changed your approach to business?
I certainly don’t want to do things ‘the way they have always been done’. The system is broken, so I operate quite differently and with a lot more empathy. Remote working for the win! One of my interns lives in Glasgow and we’ve made it work thus far. I build in longer lead times on things so that pressure is relieved from anyone I work with, and while I do expect people to do what is asked of them, I don’t like to micromanage or have endless processes in place as that is what made some of my jobs so hard in the past.
I think the only downside has been that feeling of wanting to keep up with everyone else at the same pace- so I am learning to put boundaries in place. I state my working hours on my email signature, and am relatively strict on what hours calls can be within.
What is your career advice for those who aspire to do a similar role?
Make a plan. Not just for marketing and business, but a plan for yourself—a daily routine, a weekly and a monthly one. Know your market inside out and what you can do and what help others can give to achieve this—definitely don’t try doing it all yourself. There is a time and a place for that but hiring other people to do things you can’t has a real power as well.
Did you experience any setbacks when you started your business due to your disability? How did you overcome them?
I think there have been some missed opportunities when I wasn’t well enough to meet with people or attend things. I just have to let go and hope the right things come my way and it’s all part of a larger plan; I am not in control of that so I just have to keep honest and open with all the people I speak with. I think managing my health has been hard and it provided the setback when I have had to take more time off to recover from things. I think also from a perception point of view there have been challenges on the severity of my disability and whether it is real or not- or that in some spaces, especially fashion spaces, that I just make people feel awkward and then there is no room for an open discussion. Sometimes that drives me on, sometimes it makes me feel a bit low—but the only way to change perception is to keep going and keep being true to my own mission—I don’t need to prove anything to anyone!
What practices do you have that you would like to be mirrored in other workplaces?
Remote working from the get go; weekly/ monthly calls to check on everyone’s mental and physical health—creating a space for people to be completely and honestly themselves without fear of losing work/making themselves burn out. Very much a working together, not for each other mindset—it’s all a collaboration of pulling different skills together.
How would you improve the current state of your industry?
Pfffft. I don’t know where to begin. The adaptive design community is much kinder and more open to working together than the fashion industry. The problem is it’s not as simple as hiring disabled people; if they haven’t had the same access to design education, they will be on the back foot so to speak. The universities and places of education need to be physically and digitally accessible with understanding tutors as well before we can even think about bringing creative disabled talent in. Inclusive design needs to form part of the design programmes and not an add-on. It must be built in. Then there’s actual representation of course and not just tokenism—a lot to fix and it will take time but it does fell like things are moving in the right direction.