The Tyra Banks Flawsome Ball

Tyra’s latest made-up word just might be her best yet. It’s ‘Flawsome,’ which means you + your flaws + awesome = Flawsome and Perfect is boring. The context? Tyra’s charity ball, The Flawsome Ball, which was held last night in New York City. The event benefited the Tyra Banks TZONE at the Lower Eastside Girls Club. In support of her mission to empower young women, Tyra started the TZONE as a sleep-away camp for girls back in 1999. The TZONE will now be part of the brand new home of the Lower Eastside Girls Club on Avenue D.

Check out these pics and celeb quotes from the uber-flawsome event!

Tyra

"I hope the TZONE will be absolutely life changing and transformative for the girls involved. A lot of the time, where you are from and where you are born dictates your life. I want where these girls are born to dictate their life in a positive way, because they just so happen to be living right across the street from the TZONE. Usually being in a public housing system, your odds of success are not as much as being born on the Upper East Side. I love the fact that now where these girls are born is actually going to be a positive for them, and will transform them. I want these girls to be future business leaders, entrepreneurs, to see their dreams and to reach them."

"I love what ‘flawsome’ stands for because it’s about embracing our flaws - not embracing our flaws so much where I’m walking down this red carpet in sweats and a tee shirt and no fake pair and no lash and no base and no spanks. Still, as women we want to celebrate and adorn and ourselves, but there are certain things that are just going to be. No surgery is going to change it. I have a forehead, I have a fivehead, it is what it is and I celebrate that."

Rosario Dawson

"The Lower East Side Girls Club didn’t exist when I was a young girl in this community, and we really needed it. When the boys clubs in this neighborhood were asked if they wanted to be boys and girls clubs, they declined. There’s a gap here that the girls are falling through – a lot of teenage pregnancy and high dropout rates. The fact that Tyra is here and that she has joined TZONE with the Lower Eastside Girls Club is so perfect."

Lisa D’Amato

“Empowering women and the TZONE in general is so important to me because I came from a sexually, physically, and mentally abusive home and I really didn’t have any shelter. I felt like I was raised in war, and I was my own soldier. What Tyra is doing is very dear to my heart.”

Soledad O’Brien

“This is about changing the world. There has been tons of research that shows that if you invest in young women, young women are the ones who will invest in turn in their community. Investing in young women will pay huge dividends down the road and not just for individual young women but for their community - for the men that they go on to marry, for the women that are in their lives, for their children down the road.”