One of Swindon’s charities has won the backing of a national clothing company to help overcome challenges presented by the pandemic.

Dressability, a charity which adapts clothing for people with disabilities or limited dexterity has teamed up with high street fashion firm FatFace to create sample kits which allows it to continue to showcase the services it offers.

The firm has donated ordinary clothes for the kits, which the charity's tailors and seamstresses alter to demonstrate what they can do to help people to continue to wear their favourite clothes.

“Because of the Covid pandemic we can’t visit community groups and organisations who help people who have a disability, to show them what we can do,” said manager Sharon Tombs.

“We’ve had to adapt our plans and I came up with the idea of making up kits to give to these organisations so that their own workers can showcase what we do for the people they help.

“For a local charity to have a national clothing company support us is just fantastic,” she added.

Each kit contains five or six items of clothing demonstrating clever adaptations like individual magnets behind buttons, Velcro back openings, special trouser loops and invisible zips.

They are designed to help people who have trouble using small buttons or lifting their arms, or to include discreet spaces for medical equipment.

Sharon said: “If you’ve had a stroke, you probably still love the clothes you had before and don’t suddenly want to have to wear jogging bottoms all the time or whatever, if you haven’t before.

“The whole ethos of Dressibility is that you don’t need to buy specially adapted clothes. We will make your clothes work for you.”

So far FatFace has donated enough clothing to create 20 sample kits to be delivered to care homes, special education schools, stroke units, and other disability services.

“The great thing about these clothes is that they’re colourful, fashionable, modern and they reflect the fact that people with disabilities don’t want to wear disabled clothes,” added Sharon.

“People who have long term health conditions still want to pick clothes of their choice and wear things that represent who they are. And that’s what clothes do.

“These kits allow us to spread the word and help people who don’t know about us retain their dignity and independence,” she added.

Any organisation that would like a sample kit to show clients is encouraged to contact the charity at mail@dressability.org.uk for more information.