‘After five rejections I burst into tears on Dragons’ Den – now I’m a TV star’
An entrepreneur has had immense success despite five rejections on Dragons' Den.
A Dragons’ Den star has revealed how pitching her business on the BBC One competition launched her into success, despite facing five rejections and bursting into tears behind the scenes.
Victoria Jenkins brought her adaptive fashion company Unhidden to the Den in 2022, seeking a £40,000 investment from the likes of Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Sara Davies and Steven Bartlett.
At the time, her company was valued at £800,000, and she was looking to give away 5%, despite being at a pre-revenue stage while filming, having only sold 50 products.
However, three years later, Victoria’s life has been transformed, from business opportunities with Primark to even hosting a Channel 4 programme.
Unhidden, ‘an innovation within fashion’, highlighted the importance of adaptive clothing for the disabled community, with Victoria demonstrating the need for the products after her own experiences and ill health.
The entrepreneur and former fashion design student suffered from an undiagnosed ulcer bursting in 2012, after years of warning doctors that there was something ‘wrong’ but being dismissed repeatedly.
She underwent ‘life-saving surgery’, and began to be taken more seriously when she required further operations in the months that followed, and now has a paralysed stomach and had to have her gallbladder and appendix removed.
During one of her hospital stays in 2016, she was sat alongside a patient who had gone through ovarian cancer and was unable to dress herself when Victoria realised the need for adaptable clothing.
The limited options at the time felt as though they came ‘from a carer’s perspective, not a wearer’s perspective’, she told Metro, in an exclusive interview ahead of her Dragons’ Den episode re-airing.
Having worked at All Saints and Victoria Beckham’s brand, and still being ‘really unwell’ herself, Victoria put her experience into a new business.
Victoria Jenkins brought her adaptive fashion brand Unhidden to the Den (Picture: BBC)Unhidden launched towards the end of 2020, with Victoria, aged 34 at the time, seeking to get her products out to those who needed them.
She’s come a long way since then and her pitch to the Dragons, which left her in tears after hearing five versions of ‘I’m out’, despite being branded ‘really impressive’ by Peter.
Going into Dragons’ Den, Victoria admitted feeling the ‘pressure’ of representing the disabled community and not wanting to ‘let them down’.
‘They didn’t show it, but I did burst into tears outside the Den,’ she told us. ‘I just felt like I’d let everyone down, but I think that was just all the emotions of it.’
Unhidden made its debut London Fashion Week runway show in February 2023 (Picture: Cameron Smith/BFC/Getty Images)Since then, Unhidden has grown from strength to strength, becoming the first adaptive fashion brand to join the British Fashion Council, with its debut runway show in February 2023 and a second in the following September.
‘It’s been quite a ride,’ she said.
After the exposure from the BBC entrepreneurial programme, Victoria has independently partnered with Primark for a line which launched in February and is across 10 countries in 96 stores, marking the first time a brand has done adaptive fashion and made it available on the high street, she said.
She’s also self-published a book, and co-hosted Channel 4 programme Unique Boutique alongside model Triple Minor, body confidence coach Natalie Lee and stylist David Hawkins.
The series, which aired in 2023, saw the hosts design bespoke outfits for a variety of guests living with disabilities who may not have had options in mainstream fashion ranges.
Despite her immense success after Dragons’ Den, Victoria admitted the decision of the give investors left her ‘disappointed’.
However, the result ultimately gave her full control of the direction of Unhidden and she left with ‘no ill will’.
‘I’m sure at some point I will bump into at least one of them,’ she said. ‘There’s no ill will there, they had some really good feedback and great suggestions.’
Victoria was left ‘disappointed’ from the outcome of Dragons’ Den (Picture: BBC)Victoria went on to reveal her £800,000 valuation on Dragons’ Den was a ‘cautious figure’ and Unhidden is ‘definitely worth more now’.
‘Dragons’ Den did lead to an influx of people and ideas,’ she continued, admitting it was ‘overwhelming’ at times without a team of employees to fall back on.
‘There was an outpouring of people in the community sending messages and it was so hard to keep up with everybody.
‘It was really sad, the amount of people who said, “I wish this had existed when I needed it or for somebody no longer with us”.’
Victoria has faced an outpouring of support from the disabled community (Picture: Victoria Jenkins)Even though Victoria has become a trailblazer in adaptive fashion with Unhidden, she still thinks there’s some way to go across the industry.
‘Awareness is still really lacking at a time when disabled rights and lives are at stake.
‘It would be great if the industry could get behind us more, and in a space like fashion, where we have the potential to be really innovative, I think it’s just another creative aspect of the industry that is still not really being fully explored.’
She noted that although things have been ‘getting better’, there is a sense of ‘rolling back’ with brands ‘doing it once and never doing it again’, and still a lack of size inclusivity on the runway.
Unhidden has paved the way for other brands to bring adaptive fashion forward (Picture: Victoria Jenkins)In the next five years, not only is Victoria hoping for change in the industry and more awareness as well as more adaptive fashion brands, but she’s also determined to open her own Unhidden store.
She said: ‘Every single brand that exists and every single store should be selling adaptive products and improving their digital content and the accessibility of retail space, because that is still way far below where it needs to be.
‘A lot of people can’t get into stores or can’t use the changing rooms, and though we’re starting to see a few more sensory hours, I think it’s really important but it needs to be every store doing it.’
She added: ‘We have disposable income, we just don’t get to spend it… we still have to buy clothes, so when we do, it would be great if there were more brands offering what we need.’
Dragons’ Den airs Thursdays at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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