Full article by Britt Starghill II at NYOTA Magazine.
For Kimberton Waldorf School, the impact of a Waldorf education can often be seen years after a student leaves campus—in the way alumni approach their work, their communities, and the world around them.
We’re delighted to celebrate alum Azaria Van Der Stok-Smallwood (KWS ’22), whose work as an emerging fashion designer was recently featured in NYOTA Magazine.
Azaria’s journey into fashion began long before she entered the world of design. Growing up in a multigenerational Waldorf family, she experienced an education deeply rooted in creativity, handwork, and the natural world. Her grandmother Raymonde van der Stok, a longtime KWS Eurythmy teacher, helped make that Waldorf tradition part of her family’s story.
“[I]t wasn’t even a choice,” Azaria shared with NYOTA. “My grandmother taught there, my mom went, and so did my sister.”
From kindergarten onward, handwork was simply part of everyday life. Azaria learned to knit, crochet, and spin yarn, while time spent outdoors connected those skills to the natural world. She recalls collecting wildflowers from campus, boiling them down to create natural dyes, and using those dyes on yarn.
“It was such a normal thing in the education I grew up in to take from the natural world and create art with what was around you,” she said.
That early experience continues to resonate throughout Azaria’s work today.
From Waldorf Handwork to Fashion as a Visual Language
After graduating from KWS in 2022, Azaria pursued her passion for fashion and design, carrying with her the creative foundation she developed as a Waldorf student.
For Azaria, clothing became much more than an artistic medium. Growing up navigating very different communities and environments, she came to understand the power of clothing to shape perception and communicate identity.
Today, she describes fashion as her way of communicating—a “visual language of dress.” Her work draws on her personal experiences, her community, cultural history, and questions of identity and social justice.
That combination of personal storytelling and social commentary is particularly evident in her recent collection.
Turning Waste Into Beauty
One of Azaria’s favorite pieces from the collection began with something most people would simply throw away: scraps of muslin.
While working in her studio, she collected discarded muslin scraps from pattern-making throughout the year and from other students’ work. She then painstakingly tore the material into strips, transforming the waste into a material resembling raffia.
The finished garment combines a crocheted halter-neck bodice with a dramatic, voluminous skirt made from the repurposed material. The design also incorporates individually hand-collected mussel shells from the shores of Rhode Island.
For Azaria, the piece represents far more than sustainability in fashion. It connects environmental responsibility with Black cultural history, family, place, craft, and the transformative power of making.
She draws a connection between transforming discarded materials into something beautiful and the long history of Black Americans creating nourishment, art, and culture from what society has discarded.
The hours she spent tearing fabric and crocheting by hand also carry meaning for her. She describes the repetitive, meditative nature of these processes as a way of connecting with ancestry and cultural memory.
In many ways, the philosophy behind this collection echoes something deeply familiar to Waldorf education: the value of working with our hands, paying attention to the materials around us, and transforming the ordinary into something meaningful.
A Waldorf Education That Travels With You
Azaria’s story is a beautiful reminder that education is not simply about what students learn while they are at school. It is also about the habits of mind, creative confidence, and relationship to the world that they carry forward.
At Kimberton Waldorf School, we believe that artistic and practical experiences are essential parts of an education. Handwork, movement, music, visual arts, and a connection to nature give students opportunities to experience themselves as capable creators and to see possibility in the world around them.
For Azaria, those experiences became part of the foundation for a career in fashion—one that brings together artistry, cultural storytelling, sustainability, and social awareness.
And her story continues to unfold.
On September 18, Azaria will present her collection at New York Fashion Week. She will also exhibit her thesis collection at an event connected with New York Fashion Week and Climate Week and participate in a discussion about sustainability and fashion design in the contemporary world.
We are proud to celebrate Azaria and to see the creative seeds planted during her years at Kimberton continue to grow.
Congratulations, Azaria! We can’t wait to see where your work takes you next.
