Victoria is the second eldest of 6 children, who grew up in the small village of Wendlebury in Oxfordshire. She wanted to be a dancer but a broken ankle aged 15 stopped that career- luckily she’d also always loved to draw and dress up!

Aged 19 she moved to Whitechapel in London and studied fashion design at Istituto Marangoni, graduating with a first in 2008.

She interned for Inbar Spector a week after graduating for 7 months, then got her first paid role in the industry as a pattern cutter at Goddiva, an online retailer. During her time there she incorporated many of the skills needed to be a garment technologist- which is what she has predominantly worked as ever since. Working with a wide variety of companies and brands, from suppliers to Tesco and Primark all the way to Allsaints, Sweaty Betty and Victoria Beckham, she has picked up years of experience on garment fit and construction which she utilises to this day as an adaptive designer, founding Unhidden as her first own brand company in 2017 which launched in November 2020.

Against this fashion industry career there has been a huge other factor in her life; disability.

Not born disabled, Victoria spent years with difficult stomach and bowel related symptoms. In her early 20’s it wasn’t until a life threatening ulcer burst in 2012 that she began to be taken seriously and diagnosed with a raft of conditions and undergoing multiple other surgeries- all whilst working full time.

It was during a 2016 hospital stay that she met a fellow patient who was well enough to have bedside conversations with. This woman had beaten ovarian cancer but the treatment had left her with multiple other complications from stomas to feeding tubes to medical lines in her arms. She spoke of how she couldn’t dress the way she wanted for work, couldn’t dress comfortably even when at home and had to remove all clothing to access parts of her own body for the medical teams who came to see her.

This proved to be the spark that led Victoria down the adaptive design path, going freelance in 2017 so she could manage her health as well as pursue this idea having seen youth, sustainability and. style left out of a lot of adaptive clothing at the time. While the landscape is changing wonderfully, there is still few brands offering sustainable mens and women’s stylish adaptive clothing.

It wasn’t until March 2020, when her freelance work stopped, that she finally had the time and energy to focus on Unhidden. She also realised she could do more than design- she could speak. She could educate. She could share what she learned with more than just close friends and family. And so, after doing a lot of courses and reading and watching and creating as much as she could, she began to speak publicly- something 18 year old Victoria vowed she would NEVER do!

In the last 24 months Victoria has made fashion history as the first adaptive brand on Londons’ Oxford Street, written her first book, made Unhidden the first adaptive brand to join the British Fashion Council, hosted multiple adaptive fashion events, done a TedX talk, shown at Runway of Dreams in New York and Nashville and even had her picture on the Nasdaq digital billboard on Times Square for New York Fashion Week as one of 10 honourees changing the fashion industry for the better in 2022.

Victoria has had significant media coverage for her work with Unhidden but also as an advocate for universal and adaptive design and inclusive work culture. Her first solo runway show debuted in February 23’s London Fashion Week and was covered by the One Show, Channel 4 and Reuters; with articles popping up in Vogue Business and Metro as well. Still supported by Kurt Geiger, she hopes to show again in September 2023.

She placed 3rd in the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100, is a Big Issue Change Maker for 2023 and has wrapped filming on a top secret exciting project airing in May…

You might also recognise her from Dragons Den- watch her take them on through this link!