Clothing swap promotes sustainability on campus
Trousdale Parkway on Valentine’s Day was bedecked with booths selling roses and candies in addition to the usual club fundraisers. One booth, upon closer inspection, did not match the usual expectations: The Preloved Fashion Association hosted the first Spring Clothes Swap in conjunction with USC Housing and My Closet Cloud.
Students could walk up to the booth and get free clothes in exchange for donating some of their old ones.
The idea came out of the association’s President Cherry Tung’s own experience. Tung, a senior studying accounting, noticed that she was always buying too many clothes, leading to a lack of closet space, seldom-worn clothes and overspending. This led her to notice the waste in the fashion industry, especially on a campus like USC, where trends seem to change every week, and students want to keep up with the latest trends but aren’t sure what to do with their old clothes.
Tung’s observation is certainly supported by a quick scan of the Free & For Sale Facebook group. On any given day, multiple people put up old clothes to sell at a fraction of the price, but often, these individual sellers have a difficult time finding people interested because of the stigma around second-hand clothing and buying from other students. These unsold items are often then wasted, either thrown away or left to rot in the back of someone’s closet until graduation day.
“Our short-term goal is to reduce waste in the community, and our long-term goal is to eliminate the stigma against second hand clothes,” Tung said.
The Spring Clothes Swap itself was born out of a partnership between the association and USC Housing’s sustainability coordinator Erin Fabris as a way to reduce waste and continue working to make USC’s campus sustainable. Bins were set up at CSC offices around campus right after winter break to collect old clothes that students didn’t want anymore, which were then collected by the association in preparation for Tuesday’s Spring Clothes Swap.
Kate Mahony, a sophomore majoring in communication, got a chance to browse some of the clothes.
“I thought there was a good selection, a good range of pants, shirts, sweaters, dresses, a lot of variety,” Mahony said.
Andrew Hurlow, a senior majoring in business administration, said he joined the project for philanthropic reasons.
“[We] want to promote a sense of reusability and sustainability through the USC community and give back to the community,” Hurlow said. “A lot of people [got] clothes, and a lot of people came away [understanding] that just because it was donated by someone else doesn’t mean it’s long forgotten.”