One of the problems with smart business suits is that you tend to have to stop wearing them long before they are worn out. There’s nothing worse than somebody wearing the same suit week in and week out for years, or seeing the same shirt being washed and worn for months on end.  But what can you do with discarded clothing that still has months of good life in it?

In the USA, college students are being given the chance to ‘inherit’ smart clothing to wear to interviews. In 2009, a Kentucky college received more than 700 donated items from the community and outfitted more than 100 students. The so called Career Closet provides clothing from smart-casual polo-shirts and chinos for work placement interviews and career fairs through to fully formal skirt suits and laundered shirts for graduate level academic interviews.

The Closet also helps past graduates build a business clothing wardrobe for their first job, so that they don’t have the extra expense of buying new clothing as well as moving back home and job searching.

The claim being made in the USA is that many students show up for interviews looking unprofessional, because they either can’t afford dress clothes or don’t know how to look the part. This can be especially true of students who come from a family or culture where business clothing is not familiar.

In the USA, the students who take clothes are given the choice of leaving donations and that money is then passed to a shelter for the homeless. Many do leave money in return for their new wardrobe and others volunteer to help sort and organise the clothing that is donated.

In the UK, many colleges are trying to find ways to help their graduates through the lean years after graduation – perhaps your company could contact a local centre of further education and see if they would be interested in holding a ‘Business Wardrobe’ to which your staff can donate their worn, but still wearable, clothing?