Month: August 2026

Dressability was delighted to welcome BBC Points West to our Swindon workshop recently, helping to shine a light on our work and the difference that clothing alterations, adaptations and reuse can make within our community.

The BBC visited Dressability to find out more about our de-branding work, which gives good-quality clothing that might otherwise go to waste a new lease of life.

Our team removes embroidered and printed company logos from donated coats, fleeces and other garments, allowing them to be reused and donated to people who need them. Suitable clothing is often passed on to organisations including Swindon Night Shelter.

The visit was a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate the work that goes into carefully removing company branding and to explain how something relatively simple can prevent perfectly usable clothing from being discarded.

Dressability’s work extends far beyond de-branding. At the heart of the charity is our clothing adaptation service, supporting adults and children with disabilities, limited mobility and reduced dexterity.

Our experienced team can make a wide range of practical alterations to clothing, from replacing difficult buttons and zips with easier fastenings to adapting garments around medical equipment, wheelchairs and individual mobility requirements.

We were very grateful to BBC Points West for taking the time to visit Dressability and help raise awareness of our work.

You can read the full BBC News story and find out more about the project here:

Read the BBC News article – Dressability

If you or someone you know could benefit from clothing adaptations, please get in touch with the Dressability team.

Telephone: 01793 512878
Email: dressmaking@dressability.org.uk

A huge consignment of clothing has recently arrived at Dressability, with our fantastic volunteers taking on the task of carefully removing embroidered company logos so the garments can be put to good use again.

The clothing was generously donated by Osnic Embroidery & Printing, a family-run business established in 1991 specialising in embroidered and printed workwear, teamwear and promotional clothing.

Rather than allowing perfectly good garments to go to waste when they can no longer be used for their original purpose, the team at Dressability is carefully de-branding each item by removing the embroidered logos.

It is a time-consuming process, particularly when removing embroidery without damaging the garment underneath, but the end result means coats, fleeces and other items can be given a new lease of life.

Once de-branded, suitable clothing can be passed on for reuse within the community, helping people who need it while also reducing the amount of usable clothing that might otherwise be discarded.

The project is a great example of how the skills of our team and volunteers can be used not only to support our local community, but also to make a positive environmental difference through reuse.

The scale of this latest donation has certainly kept everyone busy, and we are incredibly grateful to our volunteers for giving their time to work through such a large quantity of clothing.

A huge thank you goes to everyone at Osnic Embroidery & Printing for thinking of Dressability and for their incredibly generous donation.

With plenty more garments still to work through, our volunteers will be kept busy for some time yet, but every item successfully de-branded is another perfectly good piece of clothing with the opportunity to be used again.