A dozen girls line up at a warehouse near East Los Angeles, 16 miles southwest of the Eaton Fire burn scar. The Santa Ana winds kick white ash through the air.
Near the back of the line, 11-year-old Jasmine Navarro sits on a plastic chair beside her mom and aunt. She, like many others here, lost all of her belongings in the fire, including clothes she got for Christmas and her favorite hair oil.
“It's been very sad,” she says, “and I've been very emotional lately. But I'm sure I'll get better.”
Things are, in fact, about to get a lot better – if only for a few hours.
A sign welcomes shoppers to Altadena Girls’ free “mall.” Photo by Dara Danenberg.
Inside the warehouse, a 14-year-old named Avery Colvert and a team of volunteers have created a shopping mall for girls who’ve lost everything. All of it is free.
L: A mom shops a rack of colorful tank tops for her teenage daughter. R: Teenagers shopping at Altadena Girls are encouraged to pick out as many pieces of clothing, accessories, and beauty products as they want. When their bags get heavy, stylists offer to carry them or hold them at the front of the store. Photos by Dara Danenberg.
Avery, whose middle school burned down in the Eaton Fire, but whose home did not, got the idea to create this space after her family evacuated just a few days earlier.
“I thought about myself, and how my clothes and the way I do my hair and my makeup is so important to my identity and my confidence,” she says. “And these people – especially teenage girls – they lost that piece of identity when they lost all their things.”
L:Volunteer stylists help two teenage girls pick out jewelry. Photos by Dara Danenberg. R: Many of the companies donating to Altadena Girls, including Charlie Beads, Rezek Studio, Rare Beauty, and Bella + Canvas, are based in Los Angeles.
There are rows of shoes and racks of neatly organized clothing. Tables brim with colorful earrings and beauty supplies. Everything here is brand new, on trend, and the evacuees are welcome to it.
As soon as fires began consuming LA County houses, Angelenos raced to stock food drives and charity shops with canned food and used clothing. But Avery has put a spotlight on the needs of teenage girls specifically, and created an experience that feels more like retail therapy.
It’s not just clothes. Altadena Girls is stocked with name-brand beauty supplies, including curly hair products. Photo by Dara Danenberg.
“We had people come in and organize it and make it a beautiful space,” she says, standing near the warehouse door, where girls are trickling in. “We have music playing, and every girl that walks in, they get a nice tote bag, and they get a professional stylist to come and help them rebuild their wardrobe.”
That’s right. A professional stylist. It is Los Angeles, after all.
Stylist Andi Carter poses for a photo. Photos by Dara Danenberg.
Right away, Avery started the Instagram page Altadena Girls and put out a call for items a lot of teenage girls want: baggy jeans, pimple patches, and curly hair products.
“I want to be able to give them a sense of normalcy in their lives when nothing else is normal,” she says. “I want them to walk out feeling confident again.
Within 24 hours, Avery’s Instagram page took off.
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Boxes of clothes from trendy brands poured in. Charli XCX sent bags of beauty products from Sephora. Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, volunteered as a stylist.
In the words of pop princess Chappell Roan, whose music bops through the warehouse speakers, Altadena Girls became a “Femininomenon.”
Priscilla Torres (right) and Christina Li (left) are volunteers at Altadena Girls. Priscilla is a stylist at the Los Angeles vintage store Pechuga Vintage. Photo by Dara Danenberg.
The effort is powered by dozens of volunteers, primarily Hollywood producers and fashion industry professionals, who Avery mobilized with the help of the Hollywood Beauty Awards.
Volunteer Ruby Birns, who wears all black and a headset that connects to the team sorting donations in the back, quotes a post she saw on Instagram:
“In a city with a million production coordinators, did you think that the response to this disaster was going to be shit? Of course not.”
L: Comfortable gear, like slippers, are in high demand and regularly restocked. R: Like any shopping mall, Altadena Girls offers changing rooms and mirrors to shoppers. Photos by Dara Danenberg.
Professional Aritzia stylist and volunteer CJ Rakow asks 12-year-old Agnes McClean about her aesthetic. She’s wearing a flannel long sleeve and jeans, items she purchased from Target after her home burned down in the fire.
“Kind of like a tomboy, kind of like, skater look,” she tells CJ.
CJ digs into a rack of jeans and pulls out a pair of black cargo pants with white stitching. “These are for you, my dear,” says CJ, handing them off to Agnes, who loves them.
L: Lead stylist CJ Rakow helps Agnes, 12, pick out a purse that matches the pants and shirts Agnes has selected. R: CJ (left) and Agnes (right) show off their finds. Photos by Dara Danenberg.
Nearby, Jasmine, who was waiting in line earlier, is standing in front of a cabinet filled with beauty products. She’s holding a bag filled with clothes and jewelry, and picks out a sparkly pink nail polish.
“By the way, my favorite color is pink,” she says, opening her shopping bag, “so I have a lot of pink stuff.”
Jasmine Navarro, 11, stands with one of her favorite finds: a star crop top. Photo by Dara Danenberg.
Just then, YouTube-famous makeup artist James Charles, 25, pulls up with a haul of donations. Agnes rushes over and, giggling, asks him for a photo.
Agnes’s mom, Liz McLean, watches from nearby.
“This is just such a moment of joy,” she says. “To see their classmate do something like this and take action, it’s just incredible. This is going to be a memory for them that just doesn't go away.”
Bebe, a volunteer, holds filled bags at the front of the store so that girls can continue shopping without the extra weight. Photo by Dara Danenberg.
In a city with a reputation for superficiality, eighth grader Avery Colvert and her army of producers and stylists are showing the world that Angelenos are beautiful on the inside, too.
Signs across the store encourage shoppers to come back for more. Photo by Dara Danenberg.