IU students fight fast fashion with sustainability through Campus Closet

Student organization Campus Closet gives pre-loved clothing to new homes instead of landfills. On Wednesday, they teamed up with local resale shop Something New for the closet’s monthly pop-up shop at the Indiana Memorial Union.  

Free clothing items were laid out on multiple tables and on a rack at the front of the Maple Room. Curious students entered in and out casually as they walked through the hallway.  

At each pop-up event, Campus Closet brings its current inventory of clothes that organization members and others donate beforehand. These donations are then set out and available for free for anyone to take. People can also donate their own used items at the event which get added to the circulation. 

When IU senior Alessandra Hutton founded Campus Closet as a sophomore, the organization was originally called Grass Roots. Its purpose was to get IU students involved in different community projects and bridge the gap between the student community and the Bloomington community.  

“I think that the university takes a lot from the community. They aren’t really involved with local people and they don’t really give back,” Hutton said.

Now, Campus Closet is a free resource, similar to other services at IU like the food pantry, Crimson Cupboard. But while the food pantry targets food insecurity in the IU community, Campus Closet specifically targets clothing insecurity which was not as heavily addressed by other organizations. 

“There wasn’t really one for clothes, and there wasn’t really one with clothes for people our age,” Hutton said. “I wanted to make it fun so that people our age would be more engaged.”  

Olivia Richardson is a senior studying environmental management and Spanish. She got connected to Campus Closet through its Instagram alongside her interest in transformative change by helping people in the community through nonprofit and grassroots efforts. 

“I found them and really liked what they were doing,” Richardson said. “They were just posting clothes for free and I wanted to be involved. I think as people find out about it and it continues to grow, it could have a really positive impact on the community.”  

Richardson brought clothes from her personal closet and plans to bring items that don’t sell in her resale shop, Something New, to future pop-ups as well. She said donating clothes in this way gets clothes to students without contributing to the financial gain of larger organizations like Goodwill.  

Donating to secondhand stores like Goodwill is not as sustainable as some may think. Big thrift stores throw away a lot of what they receive if they deem it unsellable based on its condition. To combat this waste, organizations like Campus Closet accept any and all donations, no matter the item.

“That way everything is clean,” Richardson said. “Nothing’s getting thrown away and it’s just more intimate and personal.” 

Richardson said she had noticed that despite promoting the event on Instagram, many people who attended said they were not familiar with the organization. Some walked in without any knowledge about the organization but were interested to learn more. 

Volunteers at Campus Closet said they appreciated every visitor that came to the event and hope for even more traction going forward.  

“The next step is working with other sustainable organizations on campus that align with our mission. The mission is mutual aid and supporting one another through donations and through trading items instead of through sales,” Richardson said. “Especially right now, I think a lot of people are feeling disconnected from their communities or are feeling really sad, and this is one way to not only make yourself feel better, but actually have lasting change in your communities.” 

Senior Liz Coats was a visitor at the event. Coats said she cares about sustainability and believes that clothing donation events like the ones Campus Closet hosts will one day get rid of the fast fashion model that many support today. 

“I hope in the future that more people participate because it is important to sort of keep this rotation, like keep this circularity alive and to keep things from just ending up in landfills,” Coats said.