Eleven-year-old urges retailer to sell more modest girls' clothes

Published: 2004-07-07

SEATTLE (CNS) -- She has been interviewed on the "Today" show and on CNN about her effort to get a retail store to offer modest clothing for girls. Newspapers and magazines around the country have spread her story. But has all the publicity given 11-year-old Ella Gunderson of Redmond a big head? "No. We've tried to wrap this whole thing in a lot of prayer to ward (it) off," said her mother, Pam Gunderson. "The Lord knows who he picked (in Ella). She's really shy." Ella, who will be a sixth-grader at Holy Family School in Kirkland this fall, said the newfound fame makes her uncomfortable. "I don't really like it a whole ton," she told The Catholic Northwest Progress, newspaper of the Seattle Archdiocese. But when pressed, she added that a positive side to the publicity has been "getting the word out." By that she means that many girls would opt to wear more modest clothing, if only they could find it. That was the thrust of a letter she wrote to Nordstrom last winter. She complained to the Seattle-based retailer that the clothes it sells for girls -- particularly the jeans she was interested in purchasing -- were too tight and showed too much skin.

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