Foster & Fashion: Empowering Foster Youth Through Creativity

On Feb. 23, Foster & Fashion will host its first-ever showcase at Foss Waterway in Tacoma. Founded in 2024 by foster youth alum, advocate, and former Miss Black Washington USA De'Vaughnn Williams, Foster & Fashion is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering foster youth and alumni through fashion, creativity, and community support in hopes of providing them with life-changing opportunities to heal, grow, and thrive.

"This is our way to take our power back," said Williams. "We deserve our power just like everyone else and there's a need for the space because it hasn't existed."

According to the Children's Bureau and Child Welfare Information Gateway's Outreach Toolkit, there are over 391,000 youth in the foster system in the United States. Between one-quarter and one-third of youth and young adults experiencing homelessness were previously in the foster system. An estimated 22% of employed youth who have experienced foster care do not earn enough to rise out of poverty, and 71% earn less than $25,000 a year.

Although this year's event is technically Foster & Fashion's first official showcase, the concept was born from Ebony Fashion Week, which was founded in 2016. In an interview with the Emerald, Williams talked about how her organization uses fashion to create a supportive environment for foster youth and alumni to freely be themselves within a world that expects them to hide their experience as foster youth in order to adapt.

"So many foster youth put on a mask to be accepted by whoever they are living with and that transitions into changing who you are to be accepted by friends at school, and masking your experience [as a foster kid]," said Williams. "There's some people who think that we carry our experience as a badge of shame, and they try to weaponize it to tell us that we're not worthy of a more stable experience."

Eileen & Callie's Place is an organization that supports young women as they transition out of the foster system. They organize Celebrate 18! events, birthday parties for girls transitioning out of the foster system. Eileen & Callie's Place also has a monthly mailing list that informs alums of recommended events and programs. Nineteen-year-old Paris Piccolo found out about Foster & Fashion through a Celebrate 18! event.

Piccolo said her favorite thing about being involved with Foster & Fashion is its mentorship program. "I met my mentor, and she's been so nice. We see each other once a month and go get coffee … She [asks] about me and my past experiences being involved in foster care and everything. She just really loves to listen to me talk, basically, and I like that," Piccolo said.

Twenty-four-year-old Amaiya Lenor said she also found out about Foster & Fashion through Eileen & Callie's mailing list. Lenor is a foster alum as well. She entered the foster system at 15 and aged out at 21 after participating in extended foster care.

"In the state of Washington, you can stay in foster care until you're 21 if it's extended foster care. So I was able to participate in that," said Lenor. "They helped me have somewhere to live because at the time of my 18th birthday, I was still involved in high school."

According to Lenor, events like Foster & Fashion are really important for girls who grew up within the foster system and did not have access to extracurricular activities that affirmed and empowered their sense of self. The program also offers opportunities for youth to access interests that aren't as available to those in foster programs.

"This was a learning opportunity, because coming through the foster care system, makeup was something that was unattainable for me — something that no one else was gonna buy for me because I was a foster kid, and so I was never going to be able to learn how to do it for myself. So to be honest with you, I never learned how to do my makeup. This is the first time that I'm actually having makeup on my face in about eight years," said Lenor.

Nineteen-year-old Natalie Pritton studies fashion merchandising at Seattle Pacific University.

"Fashion is kind of something I've always enjoyed," she said. "Being a foster alum and studying fashion, it was just right up my alley."

In the future, Pritton said she sees herself more behind the scenes. "I'd love to do backstage work for shows. I've been able to be a backstage assistant."

Behind the scenes of this fashion show is photographer Angelica Marie, who says her own experience as a model helps her be a better photographer.

"I feel like that's my edge," she said. "It absolutely helps in these types of environments where we [have] to be able to connect with newer models so they know they're not by themselves, and they don't have to be nervous."

Foster alum and advocate Ary Maury is also walking in the fashion show. As a youth, Maury was in and out of the foster care system, but today she is a stay-at-home mom and content creator on TikTok. Some of the content she creates includes get-ready-with-me/ try-on hauls.

"Eighty-five percent of foster youth will end up homeless, dead, incarcerated, or sexually assaulted," said Maury. "I love fashion. I love advocating. A lot of my more recent posts have been more political and creating awareness for what's going on."

Maury, who is the other half of a set of twins, said she got involved in politics after watching her sibling struggle to navigate transness within the confines of the foster system. "One thing I would like to change in the foster care system is transgender youth are forced to room with the sex they were assigned at birth. I would like for transgender youth and non-binary youth to get their own rooms so they feel comfortable."

In addition to the fashion showcase, Foster & Fashion hopes to encourage and empower foster youth through its programs. "Right now, we are gathering instructors and people who are in various fields to teach classes. We want to do one class per quarter," said Williams. "We have a partnership with Paul Mitchell School. They're going to be teaching our kids cosmetology. We have a youth who does painting and wants to come and teach painting classes. So we'll do that for one quarter. So each quarter, we're doing a class in various subjects involving art, fashion, [and/ or] community."

Foster & Fashion's Ebony Fashion Week 2025 Showcase will be at Foss Waterway Seaport, 705 Dock St., in Tacoma from 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.