A few years ago, the Irish educator and disability advocate Sinéad Burke stood on the TED stage and described something most of us never think about: what it’s like to move through a world built at the wrong scale. Burke, who has achondroplasia — the most common form of dwarfism, a word that literally means “without cartilage formation” — stands at 105.5 cm, or 3’5″. In her talk, later published as “Why design should include everyone,” she walks through a day of ordinary obstacles: an airport security belt she can’t reach, a bathroom lock built too high, a coffee cup handed over a counter she can’t see past, and a childrenswear rack that has nothing that fits an adult body.
None of these are accidents. They’re the predictable result of a single, invisible decision made over and over during the design process: whose measurements counted, and whose didn’t.
That question isn’t just about architecture or product design. It’s a sourcing question. And it’s one that basic apparel — t-shirts, hoodies, joggers, sportswear — has been quietly avoiding for decades.
The Sizing Gap Nobody Puts in the Deck
Fashion likes to talk about inclusivity in campaigns. It’s less comfortable putting it into pattern grading. On the runways of New York, London, Paris, and Milan for fall/winter 2023, the overwhelming majority of looks shown were sized 0 to 4, with only a fraction of a percent sized 14 and above. That gap between marketing language and actual size curves runs straight through the wholesale and private-label world too — the same world that stocks basics for boutiques, streetwear labels, and DTC brands across Europe and the Gulf.
Extended sizing is often treated as an afterthought: a grading exercise tacked onto a pattern built for a “standard” body. But standard was never a neutral word. It was a choice. And for millions of customers — plus-size, petite, short-statured, disabled, aging — that choice shows up as a garment that doesn’t fit, a closure they can’t manage, or a label that scratches at a seam they can’t reach to adjust.
Inclusive Apparel Isn’t a Niche Anymore — It’s a Market
This isn’t a purely ethical argument, though it’s certainly that. It’s also, increasingly, a commercial one.
Industry analysts now track adaptive and inclusive apparel as one of the faster-growing segments in the wider clothing market. Estimates vary by firm and methodology, but the direction is consistent: several market research groups project the global adaptive clothing category expanding at a compound annual growth rate somewhere between roughly 6% and 13% through the early 2030s, pushing the segment from the low billions into the tens of billions of dollars. One analysis ties the growth directly to demographics rather than trend cycles: the World Health Organization estimates that around 16% of the global population — roughly 1.3 billion people — lives with a significant disability, and the United Nations projects the number of people aged 65 and over will more than double to 1.6 billion by 2050. Aging populations and disability aren’t fringe demographics. They’re a large and growing share of the people buying clothes.
Mainstream retail has already noticed. Reporting on the sector notes that Primark launched a 49-piece adaptive apparel collection in early 2025, and Zalando introduced an adaptive fashion line spanning kids’ apparel, footwear, and sportswear in 2024. When a European high-street retailer and a major European e-commerce platform both move into adaptive basics within the same year, it’s a signal worth reading — especially for brands and manufacturers whose core business already is basics.
What “Designing for Someone Else” Actually Looks Like in a T-Shirt
Burke’s talk never mentions garment manufacturing. But her closing question — “Who are we not designing for?” — translates almost directly into a production brief. In basic apparel, it shows up as concrete, achievable decisions:
- Extended and true-to-body size curves, rather than a core run of S–XL with outlier sizes bolted on as an afterthought.
- Adjustable and easy-access closures — magnetic snaps, larger pull tabs, side-seam openings — instead of small buttons or zippers that assume full hand dexterity.
- Printed or heat-transferred labels instead of stitched-in tags, reducing skin irritation for sensory-sensitive wearers.
- Seam placement and proportion adjustments for shorter torsos, longer sitting posture, or asymmetric fit needs, rather than simply scaling a single block up or down.
- Petite and youth-adult crossover fits for adult customers who are currently, as Burke put it in her talk, shopping in the children’s department because nothing in womenswear or menswear was cut for them.
None of this requires reinventing a hoodie. It requires a manufacturing partner willing to grade patterns properly, test fit across a wider range of real bodies, and treat closures and trims as design decisions rather than defaults.
Where This Fits for Brands Sourcing From Istanbul
For European and Middle Eastern fashion brands sourcing basics, this is where manufacturing capability becomes a genuine differentiator rather than a compliance checkbox. Turkey’s position — close to European supply chains, with deep experience in cotton knitwear, fleece, and performance fabrics — makes it a natural base for testing extended and adaptive-friendly size ranges without the lead times or minimums of full overseas production runs.
A manufacturing partner that can grade a t-shirt or hoodie block across a genuinely wide size range, swap in accessible trims on request, and run smaller pilot batches for a new inclusive line gives a brand room to test the market before committing to a full collection. That’s a meaningfully different offer than a factory that only knows how to reproduce one block in five sizes.
The Real Takeaway
Burke’s larger point in her talk wasn’t really about bathrooms or coffee cups. It was that design is not just a tool for function and beauty — it shapes who gets to feel included in the world, and whose dignity gets upheld or ignored by default. Apparel is one of the most literal versions of that idea there is: it sits directly on the body, every day, for everyone.
For brands building out basics — t-shirts, hoodies, sportswear — the opportunity isn’t just to avoid excluding customers. It’s to notice, earlier than competitors do, who currently isn’t being designed for at all.
FAQ
What is inclusive or adaptive apparel manufacturing? It refers to producing clothing — including everyday basics like t-shirts and hoodies — with size ranges, closures, seams, and materials designed to fit and work for a wider range of bodies and abilities, rather than a single “standard” body type.
Is the adaptive clothing market actually growing? Yes. Multiple industry research firms project the global adaptive clothing market growing from roughly the low billions of dollars toward the tens of billions over the next several years, driven largely by aging populations and rising disability awareness worldwide.
Do adaptive-friendly design features cost significantly more to manufacture? Not necessarily. Many adjustments — extended grading, alternative trims, printed rather than sewn-in labels — are achievable within standard basic-apparel production once a factory builds them into its pattern and trim library, rather than treating every request as custom work.
Can a manufacturer in Istanbul produce extended-size or adaptive basics for European and Gulf brands? Yes. Turkey’s manufacturing base has strong cotton knitwear and fleece capabilities and sits close to European supply chains, making it well suited to producing wider size ranges and small pilot runs for brands testing inclusive lines before scaling up.
Sources: Sinéad Burke, “Why design should include everyone,” TED Talk, 2017. Fortune Business Insights, Adaptive Clothing Market Report, 2026. 360iResearch, Adaptive Clothing Market analysis, 2026 (citing WHO and UN population data). Statista, U.S. Women’s Inclusive Sizing Apparel Market, 2023.
Ready to Expand Your Size Curves or Launch an Inclusive Basics Line? At Custom Apparelist, we help European and global brands develop true-to-body patterns, extended size ranges, and adaptive-friendly features directly from our Istanbul production facilities. Contact us to discuss your tech pack or pilot batch.
