Costumers of Color, Inc. exists to ensure that the beauty and complexity of history belong to everyone. We are dedicated to dismantling the exclusionary lens of history through providing education, building community, expanding access, increasing representation, and fostering belonging for people of color in historical costuming and public history by creating scholarships, educational events, and cultural heritage travel that welcome participants of all racial and cultural backgrounds.
Whidbey Island, Washington State, USA
Costumers of Color, Inc. (CoCo) is a Washington State 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in September 2023 and headquartered in Oak Harbor. We serve people of color and multiracial communities who have historically been excluded from historical costuming, dress history, and public history spaces. Our programs include annual scholarships, public education events, and international educational travel that consistently attract a higher percentage of POC participants than comparable organizations in our field, where industry norms hover around 5% POC attendance. Our events regularly achieve 29–35% POC attendance, and our travel groups have ranged from 55% to 100% POC participants.
Since our founding, we have hosted five community events on Whidbey Island, including a Norse meetup, an 18th-century dance and games workshop, a Regency tea and letter-folding workshop, a historical sewing meetup, and a historical dance class. We have delivered public education presentations at venues including DeMontfort University (UK), University of Cincinnati, the Whidbey Island Music Festival, Seattle College, and West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village (UK). We have awarded three scholarships to students of color and completed eight international educational travel programs to Italy, Venice, and the United Kingdom. Our annual events have drawn between 80 and 140 participants.
We are a growing presence on Whidbey Island and plan to expand our local programming as our organizational capacity increases.
