Primark

Disabled shoppers, wheelchair users, and parents of sensory-sensitive kids buy Primark adaptive clothing and comfort-led kidswear when most high street fashion still treats inclusive design as specialist, expensive, or hard to find.

ENABLE Model location

• Builder-side Interventions → Design Accessible Experiences
• Builder-side Interventions → Create Accessible Content
• Builder-side Interventions → Set Requirements that Include Accessibility
• Builder-side Interventions → Iterate to Address Shortcomings

What it is

Primark sells low-cost clothing through a large brick-and-mortar retail network, and in 2024 and 2025 it started using that scale to push some accessibility work upstream through design, content, and requirement-setting. The clearest example is its adaptive clothing program: first adaptive lingerie in January 2024, then a 49-piece men's and women's range in January 2025 that reworked Primark bestsellers with magnetic zips, hidden access points for medical devices, elasticated or pull-assisted waist details, and seated cuts for wheelchair users.¹²³

Primark worked with the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers on survey research and brought in disabled adaptive designer Victoria Jenkins of Unhidden for the 2025 expansion.¹²³ That combination moved disability research and disabled design expertise into ordinary high street buying decisions instead of leaving adaptation outside the retail pipeline.¹²

Primark also pushed accessibility into store content and representation around those garments. By late 2025, Primark's adaptive areas used NaviLens-enabled signs and product labels so blind and low-vision shoppers could find adaptive womenswear, menswear, or lingerie through audible directions, and the company had launched a seated mannequin co-created with Sophie Morgan in 22 flagship stores across nine countries to display the range.⁴⁵ In July 2025 it also changed core kidswear by removing neck labels from more than 50% of children's clothing and adding seamless or flat-seam socks after parents identified sensory discomfort as a daily barrier.⁶⁷

Why it matters

Mass-market fashion kept adaptive clothing outside ordinary retail for decades, routing disabled shoppers through rehabilitation, special-order, and other separate channels instead.⁸⁹¹⁰ Helen Cookman began developing Functional Fashions in the mid-1950s, and between 1958 and 1976 nearly thirty American designers contributed garments to that line.⁹ In 1959, JAMA described "functional fashions for the physically handicapped" as garments that were easier to put on and take off, with continued research still needed to support "self-help, vocational rehabilitation, and social adjustment for millions of handicapped people."⁸ In 1975, Levi's sold adaptive jeans with full-length side zips through doctor's offices, hospitals, and rehabilitation clinics rather than through ordinary retail floors.¹⁰ When Cookman and Virginia Pope died, that line ended, and the work fell into abandonment.⁹ By 2016, Runway of Dreams and Tommy Hilfiger could still present adaptive mainstream clothing as a first-of-its-kind collaboration to bring those garments directly to consumers at the same price as the existing children's line.¹¹ By 2018, the UK government had tried to recruit a fashion disability champion to "open industry doors," but the post remained unfilled.¹² That longer history places Primark inside a retail sector that long left clothing access outside ordinary buying and merchandising, so disabled shoppers carried the downstream search, alteration, and assistance labor before adaptive design and content entered the high-street pipeline.

Primark's adaptive work shifts part of that labor upstream through requirement-setting, design, and iteration. Specialist adaptive brands often cannot match this price band or store network, and Lucy Webster noted in 2025 that adaptive fashion remained rare on the high street while specialist options tended to be expensive.¹ In 2019, activists and government were already describing the sector as one that was not doing enough to earn the "purple pound" of disabled consumer spending.¹² In 2024, RiDC reported from research Primark commissioned that 62% of disabled shoppers had difficulty finding clothes they felt happy and comfortable in, 55% regularly avoided shopping in store because it was difficult or challenging, and 24% bought non-adaptive clothes and altered them instead.² In January 2025, Webster reported that Primark's expanded range kept prices close to standard lines, with adaptive T-shirts starting at £5 and seated or standing jeans at £14. Victoria Jenkins said keeping the adapted versions at "basically the same price as the non-adapted one" was crucial.¹ That pricing changes the adaptation tax. It lowers tailoring costs, specialist markups, and some travel and search labor that disabled shoppers often absorb under precarity. It does not remove the tax completely, because rollout stays selective and disabled shoppers still spend time finding which stores, fixtures, and product lines will actually work.¹²¹²⁵

Disabled shoppers cancel plans, spend more money, and lose social participation when clothing teams fail to set requirements and design for seated bodies, stomas, sensory sensitivities, or low dexterity.¹²¹³ Lucy Webster reported in January 2025 that 75% of surveyed disabled shoppers found it difficult to get accessible clothing, seven out of ten spent more on clothing that met their needs, 80% felt excluded from buying fashionable clothes, and 42% often cancelled plans because they could not find the right clothing.¹ A scoping review in Applied Ergonomics found that clothing "mostly influences mobility and self-care" and that clothing is "an important and complex environmental factor that interacts with all health domains, including participation."¹³ Shoppers endure inaccessibility, lose comfort, time, money, and self-presentation, and sometimes withdraw from ordinary social life.¹²¹³

Primark's frontier remains partial. The 2025 adaptive collection reached selected stores and Click & Collect rather than becoming the default logic of every rail and every product line.³⁵ The retailer merchandised adaptive stock on dedicated fixtures, marked it with special labels, and used a specific store-finder path to help customers locate it.⁵ That arrangement keeps discovery in a separate channel: disabled shoppers have to track dedicated signage, store filters, rollout lists, and launch campaigns just to find adaptive garments in mass retail. When those cues fail, they fall back on human help or specialist options. The kidswear changes in 2025 push further upstream because they apply design changes to core ranges rather than to a special capsule.⁶⁷

Merchandising barriers

OXO Good Grips shows a different merchandising barrier. OXO keeps the product in the ordinary aisle but hides disability at the shelf, which increases discovery labor through invisibility. Primark makes adaptive stock easier to spot, but often through separate fixtures, separate signage, and selective rollout. That arrangement can still increase discovery labor through segregation. In both cases, merchandising choices shape who can find the accessible option without extra work.

Real-world examples

In the news

Primark launches clothing range designed for people with disabilities (January 2025)
-- Lucy Webster, The Guardian

• Primark expanded from adaptive lingerie into a 49-piece men's and women's range built with disabled designer Victoria Jenkins, using seated cuts, magnetic zips, hidden access points, and price points close to standard stock. A mass retailer moved accessibility upstream through design and requirement-setting instead of leaving disabled shoppers to tailoring and trial-and-error.¹

In the news

Primark launches mannequin to represent wheelchair users (July 2025)
-- Danielle Wightman-Stone, FashionUnited

• Primark rolled out a seated mannequin co-created with Sophie Morgan to 22 flagship stores across nine countries. The mannequin displayed Primark's adaptive range and main fashion lines, showing the retailer changing not only garments but also content and visual merchandising so wheelchair users appear inside ordinary high street representation.⁴

In the news

Primark continues to drive inclusive fashion changes with kidswear updates (July 2025)
-- Danielle Wightman-Stone, FashionUnited

• Primark changed core children's clothing by removing neck labels from more than half the range, adding seamless and flat-seam socks, introducing in-store Extra Comfort signage, and piloting sensory-friendly shopping hours in selected stores. Accessibility moved out of a specialist capsule and into default kidswear design, content, and iteration.⁶

• RiDC's 2024 case study reported that Primark used research with more than 800 disabled consumers to inform its first adaptive lingerie launch and to justify wider store changes, including reviews of store operations, accessible till points, and fitting rooms.²
• TheIndustry.fashion reported that Primark's kidswear updates made more than 50% of children's clothing neck-label free, including almost 70% of pyjamas, after parents and carers identified tags and sock seams as recurring sources of discomfort.⁷

What care sounds like (builder-side interventions)

Care at the requirement-setting, design, content, and iteration stages means listening to disabled shoppers, changing the core garment, and keeping the price within ordinary high street reach:

• "We chose things that we could sell the adapted version at basically the same price as the non-adapted one. That was really important, the affordability."¹
• "This isn't about creating a new and special range."¹⁴
• "This is more than a new range for us."²
• "Disabled people deserve to look and feel good, and they deserve to be able to buy their clothes in regular stores at a regular price."¹

What neglect sounds like (builder-side interventions)

Neglect shows up when retailers leave disabled shoppers outside the ordinary high street offer and treat access as exceptional:

• "The overall experience both online and in-store remains a negative one."¹²
• "That doesn't mean we feel welcome and able to fully engage."¹²
• "I didn't think we'd see adapted fashion on the high street in my lifetime."¹

What compensation sounds like (navigator-side compensations)

Compensation describes the extra labor shoppers and families still carry when mainstream clothing ignores seated bodies, stomas, dexterity limits, or sensory overload:

• "One of the barriers I find difficult when shopping for clothes for Malaya is the tags in clothing."¹⁴
• "I buy the mainstream version, pay for alterations, and hope the fix does not ruin the garment." -- user-workarounds
• "Before I travel, I check Click & Collect, search the labels, and map the floor so I do not waste the trip." -- user-workarounds
• "If the range is not clearly marked, I ask staff or a family member to help me find it." -- human help

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All observations occur within United Kingdom high-street fashion retail and Primark's broader European store network, where buyers, designers, merchandisers, store staff, disabled shoppers, caregivers, and families negotiate who gets clothing that can be worn, fastened, and bought without extra labor.

Footnotes

1. The Guardian: Primark launches clothing range designed for people with disabilities ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. RiDC: Primark: Bringing accessible clothing to the high street ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. Primark corporate: Adaptive fashion hits the high street as Primark launches first men and women's range with Victoria Jenkins ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. FashionUnited: Primark launches mannequin to represent wheelchair users ↩ ↩²

5. Primark UK: Our adaptive clothing guide ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. FashionUnited: Primark continues to drive inclusive fashion changes with kidswear updates ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. TheIndustry.fashion: Primark ups inclusivity in kidswear with focus on 'extra comfort' ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. JAMA Network: Functional Fashions for the Physically Handicapped ↩ ↩²

9. WUWM / Radio Chipstone: Functional Fashions (Part II) ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. The Contemporary Jewish Museum: Helen Cookman and Functional Fashions ↩ ↩²

11. TIME: I Launched a Nonprofit to Empower People with Disabilities Through Adaptive Clothing ↩

12. The Guardian: Why the high street still isn't doing enough for customers with disabilities ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

13. PubMed: The role of clothing on participation of persons with a physical disability: A scoping review ↩ ↩² ↩³

14. Primark UK: Extra comfort for kids | Everyday clothing made more inclusive ↩ ↩²