Over 1,500 new and lightly used pieces of professional clothing took their places in the Stanford Career Education (CareerEd) Center on Friday morning. Over the course of the afternoon, the blazers, shirts, skirts, dress shoes and ties of all varieties would find new homes with Stanford students. 

Students stood in front of mirrors trying on new formal attire for interviews, browsed through dress shirts for upcoming internships and picked up new purses and handbags in the offices and hallways of CareerEd. 

It was all part of the Stanford Career Closet event, which collects new and lightly-used professional clothes to give students on campus. A coalition of University community groups — including the Stanford Parents’ Club, CareerEd and the First-Generation and/or Low Income Student Success Center (FLISSC) — organized the annual event. 

Organizers filled the CareerEd conference rooms with racks full of clothes. One room served as an area for students to try on shoes and accessories. Offices became makeshift dressing rooms, and the ground floor lobby became the checkout area. 

“I really needed a suit for myself,” Zhangyang Wu ’27 said. “It feels like going into a Macy’s to shop, and the people here to help are really supportive. I just really enjoyed it.”

Many of the people helping students find items and get to the dressing rooms are Stanford Parents’ Club (SPC) volunteers. The SPC serves as a resource for students and their parents and supporters to engage with the Stanford community. 

The Career Closet has “become this really inclusive event that creates a win-win in the community,” said Rita Patel, who co-chairs the event for SPC. She introduced the idea for the first Career Closet last April after initially being involved in the SPC when her son, who graduated in 2019, was attending Stanford.

Patel described a detailed preparation process for the Career Closet: SPC volunteers collect, sort and label clothing and coordinate with multiple organizations, including the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU), the Stanford Alumni Association, Stanford Research Park and the bookstore. The organizations contribute by collecting clothes or hosting the event, Patel said. 

The Office of Sustainability partnered with the event too, she said, to support the reuse and repurposing of clothing. 

The planning process spans more than a year, according to Assistant Vice Provost and CareerEd Executive Director James Tarbox. He added that event planners set up clothing drop-offs during special occasions, such as reunion homecoming weekend and determine which campus groups will be able to participate, including Stanford parents.

Organizers map out what the CareerEd center will look like on the day of the event and figure out how to publicize the Career Closet to students, Tarbox said, and in the days leading up to the event, volunteers sort the clothing based on their types and sizes. 

Tarbox remembered a student who approached him during a previous Democracy Day event and shared that the clothes they wore came from that year’s Career Closet, which had happened the week before. He remembers the student telling him: “‘If it weren’t for that event, I wouldn’t feel as good about who I am going to this event.’”

“I’m just so thrilled to hear that,” Tarbox said. “It’s really heartwarming, seeing that people put these clothes to use immediately.”

Students felt similarly at this year’s Career Closet. Amaya Marion ’25 said she had an upcoming class simulation that required business attire — which she picked up during Friday’s event. 

“Suits are expensive, and a lot of these professional clothes are expensive, so [the Career Closet] really helped me get the items I need in the future,” Jacob Shafik ’27 said. 

And for America Sophia George ’24 M.S. ’24, the event provided a space to talk with friends about “what looked good and what we were looking for, and helping each other out.”

This year, the Career Closet partnered closely with FLISSC, opening to students in the community group from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and to all students from 2 to 4 p.m.

“It took a lot of planning and intentionality to make sure that we had our variations right,” Lien Truong said. Truong, the associate dean and recently endowed Kelsey and Robert Murphy director of FLISSC, underscored the event’s focus on inclusivity and ensuring the availability of a variety of clothing sizes, styles and options.

Truong praised the partnerships with CareerEd and SPC to create a time specifically for students in the first-generation and/or low-income (FLI) community. She said that the event, which provides more equitable access to often costly professional clothes, serves as an “enhancement to [FLI students’] academic journey.”

Looking to the future, Patel, Tarbox and Truong all spoke about hopes of having a perennial Career Closet for student use. Tarbox currently keeps a closet of blazers and a small collection of shoes in his office for students who need help finding business attire outside of Career Closet events.

“What is it like for us to dedicate a room that’s always full of professional clothing, where any student at any given moment can come and access to put an outfit together?” Truong said. 

A red tag hangs on the pieces on display at the Career Closet. It reads, “We are thrilled that you are the new owner of this garment! Our hope is that one day, you will pay it forward.”

“I love what Rita [Patel] created in terms of that tag,” Tarbox said. “I’m a real believer in ‘as we rise, we lift others with us.’”