Wexbaby – a small business with a special story

When Ettie talks about foster care, her voice is full of gratitude and love. She repeats how lucky she considers herself for the experiences she made in foster care and how much her foster carers, who she calls her parents, mean to her. 

For years, Ettie who founded Wexbaby when she was just 24, has donated a percentage of her small business’ profit to The Fostering Network to support our work. ‘To me it feels like giving back to June and Pete and saying thank you’, she explains her commitment to the cause. 

Foster care journey

June and Pete were Ettie and Sally’s first and only foster carers. The sisters had been in and out of care a couple of times before being taken into foster care permanently when they were seven and nine years old. Whenever they needed to be looked after, they stayed with June and Pete.

The couple, who cared for over 400 children throughout their time as foster carers, were emergency carers back then and very much invested in the girls’ life. ‘I think Pete and June just fell in love with us and they really liked our mum. They always kept an eye on how we are doing’, Ettie remembers. When it became clear that Ettie and Sally needed to stay in care, June and Pete spared no effort to ensure the girls could stay together – and with them. The couple switched from emergency to long-term foster care to be able to provide   the sisters with the stability they needed. 

Family is everything to Ettie and that includes both her birth family – her mum, who she speaks highly of and wants the world to know what a wonderful person she was – her dad, her cousin and her grandparents who are all based in France, as well as June and Pete. The latter have done all they could to ensure Ettie and Sally stay in touch with their French family throughout their time in care. But not just that: they also built a wonderful relationship with the birth family themselves. Some of her fondest childhood memories, Ettie says, are of the holidays she spent in France visiting her relatives with her sister and June and Pete.  

A family business 

Wexbaby is also kept within the family. Ettie, who studied fashion at university, is running the business single-handedly, but Sally is the talent behind the illustrations which make for the clothing’s distinctive design. Their cousin in France, ‘a primary school teacher with French handwriting’, provides the text for the prints. The designs honour the women’s French roots and by supporting The Fostering Network and their foster carers, as Ettie emphasises. 

During the festive period, Wexbaby sold a Christmas pyjama set on with a special meaning to it. ‘The profits from the set were donated to The Fostering Network. There were the options of a couple of designs, which could be personalised. Maybe that’s the care experienced child in me but I love a personalisation.’ 

Looking ahead

Asked about her plans for the future, Ettie immediately starts talking about growing Wexbaby further. She says she would love to have a team behind the brand and wants to support her family with the business. Growing it also means Ettie could support foster care even more, which is of utmost importance to the 30-year-old. 

Ettie also shares that she considers becoming a foster carer herself in the future. ‘Our childhood was very difficult in moments, but I also know we were very lucky. We had foster carers who did everything possible to make us feel “normal” and I can’t put into words, how much I love my foster family and the relationship we have. The love we got from them and the love they showed our biological family shaped who we are. I just want to give someone the opportunities me and Sally got. 

‘Even a fraction of the love we received would have done us the world of good for adulthood. It shows how much you can change someone’s life.’

If you want to support fostering and a small business, please check out Wexbaby here.