Live from the YFZ Ranch: Fashion Week

Mike Riggs | June 30, 2008

The moms of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints started an online clothing store to provide their confiscated children with acceptable clothes. Now that they have been reunited with their kids, they're considering turning the website into a money-making venture:

"We don't know what to expect on demand but we have had a flood of interest," said Maggie Jessop, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "Our motive is not to flaunt ourselves or our religion before the world. We have to make a living the same as everyone does."

The sect is offering dresses, overalls, shirts, pants, nightgowns, sleepers, onesies for babies and, yes, ankle-to-wrist underwear. There are denim jeans for boys and "teen princess" dresses in plain, jacket and vest styles in pastel shades of pink, peach, yellow, green, aqua, blue, lavender and lilac.

The FLDS has gotten a rough rap during the last few months, and I'm on the fence about how much of it was deserved, but the group's openness to economic adaptation is refreshing:

"They accuse us of [relying] on welfare, but that's untrue," [Jessop] said. "We like to be busy and learn to meet our needs—out of ashes growing lilies."

Editor Jacob Sullum wrote here about Texas' abuse of children in pursuit of protecting them from the very same.