Plus-size fire evacuees struggled to find new clothes. This Burbank boutique lent a hand
When Debbie Henry evacuated her Altadena home in early January, she packed about enough clothing for a weekend getaway.
It’s what she’d done the last three times she evacuated due to wildfire threats; on each occasion, she returned home within a few hours. But this time was different.
Overnight, the Eaton fire decimated residential Altadena, including the stretch of Fair Oaks Avenue where Henry lives with her husband and granddaughter. A heroic next-door neighbor saved her house, but weeks later, she still waited on an insurance assessment and the green light to go home — and she desperately needed more clothes.
Read more: Palisades and Eaton fires now 100% contained. But a long road to recovery looms
Henry tried several donation centers, but at each one, she had to dig through piles of clothes until she found anything in her size. Even then, most pieces were stained, ripped or otherwise unwearable.
Then a friend told her about Qurves Boutique.
The plus-size clothing store, nestled among a cluster of auto shops in Burbank, normally specializes in affordable fashion for sizes 10-26. In early January, affordable became free as store owner Olivia Pyle began fielding clothing donations to help plus-size fire victims restore their wardrobes to their former glory.
“I saw a need,” the 25-year-old entrepreneur said. Shopping as a plus-size person is hard enough; add necessity to the equation, and suddenly you’re left buying from the bottom of the barrel. Pyle wanted to give people a different experience, one where they could choose from clean, fashionable options they knew would fit them.
“People lost their homes, not their dignity,” she said. “They should be able to pick.”
Read more: How to help those affected by fires raging across Los Angeles County
Windfall donations enabled Pyle to be selective with the items she accepted. Once she quality-checked and sorted them by size and type, she added her picks to a display so well-curated that when Henry came into Qurves in late January, she could hardly discern where the donations ended and the store’s regular stock began.
Henry told Pyle she was shopping for her 14-year-old granddaughter Amyiah, who trailed shyly behind her. “But if you have something for me too,” she smirked.
While the pair browsed the metal racks, Henry pausing now and then to ask Amyiah to read her a price, Pyle reminded them — as she had reminded dozens of other customers — that they needn’t be modest. She had more than enough donations.
In the end, Henry left with pajamas, two shirts and a pullover sweater, and Amyiah with a T-shirt and distressed denim jacket. Once things calmed down, they promised Pyle they’d be back.
Pyle received the same promise a week prior, after an hours-long visit with Debbie Milley and her daughters Amanda and Sarah Milley.
The Milleys lost the Altadena home they had been renting for more than two years in the Eaton fire. Having received no emergency alert, they rushed out of the house after they saw their neighbors fleeing, taking with them only Uno cards (Sarah’s), a laptop (Amanda’s) and their three pets.
They reasoned that they’d be back in a week. On Jan. 18, L.A. County Public Works conducted an inspection of their property, declaring it a “total structure loss.” Government documents, clothes, Amanda’s hearing aid supplies — they were all lost to the flames.
Debbie and Amanda had some luck getting clothes at local donation centers, but Sarah, who has Down syndrome, struggled to find items that suited her plus-size 4-foot-10-inch frame.
In her early Instagram messages with Pyle, Amanda flagged Sarah’s proportions, adding that her little sister loved bright colors. When they visited Qurves a few days later, they were greeted by an entire rack of pieces Pyle and her mother, Stacey Pyle — who flew in from Utah to help with donations — had picked out just for Sarah.
“They were pretty spot-on,” Amanda said, which made sense given Pyle’s professional styling experience. Each time Sarah tried on a new ensemble, “it was like a little fashion show. She’d, like, twirl and everything.”
Since they evacuated, Sarah kept talking about how much she missed her old things: a butterfly ring, a red dress, an Olivia Rodrigo T-shirt, Amanda said. She struggled to understand that they were truly gone.
Now, “she has new things to be attached to,” Amanda said, including a bright red dress that looks much like the one she left behind.
Read more: 'Survivor's guilt' is real right now in L.A.
Pyle plans to keep offering free shopping to fire victims through Feb. 15, she said. After that, she’ll focus on giving her surplus stock a new home — possibly at Quirk, an L.A. vintage store that launched a similar initiative to Qurves’ in early January.
Or maybe she’ll spread the pieces out, she said, “to make sure that there’s plus sizes everywhere, especially with places that can be up a little bit more permanently.”
Then, come late February, she’ll celebrate Qurves’ first anniversary in Burbank, also her birthday. She hopes to be joined by many repeat visitors.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
