While a senior at Harvard College, Yifan Zhang attended an event with the founders of Gilt Groupe, a website that offers limited-time designer sales to its members. “They talked about using the website to revolutionize sample sales,” Zhang says. “I wanted to do the same with the charity thrift store: create an online market where people can donate their designer clothing and have it sold for charity.”
Armed with her newfound vision, Zhang launched Styleta on Harvard’s campus in April 2010. That spring Zhang and her student volunteers solicited clothing donations to sell for charity and donated proceeds to the student-run homeless shelter in Harvard Square. Zhang’s business partner started up Styleta at Indiana University, and word spread quickly to other campuses through Facebook.
Currently, Styleta has 60 student volunteers across four college campuses. Each campus has a director, who spends about 15 hours a week running the operation for that campus, overseeing donations, planning fashion shows, coordinating volunteers and getting the word out. Other students volunteer focus on clothing sourcing, photo shoots or fashion shows.
Styleta’s student leaders vote on which organizations receive donations each semester. Last fall Styleta raised over $1,000 for Dress for Success; this spring they hope to raise over $5,000 for charity: water.
In addition to collecting donations from local and regional boutiques, Styleta encourages women to throw clothing donation parties with their friends. Because the website focuses on high-quality designer clothing, items that aren’t up to standards are donated to Salvation Army or Goodwill so they don’t go to waste.
The organization also holds a designer challenge, which adds newer, edgier items to the website and helps the chosen designer gain visibility. “We find talented student designers and have them create original pieces which they donate to Styleta,” says Zhang. “People vote on them through the Facebook voting platform. Last year’s was really successful. We got over a thousand votes overall. The winner is really into eco-friendly, organic cotton clothing and she just recently launched her line on Styleta.”
Another designer challenge is in the works for this summer.
Zhang says she hopes students’ involvement will boost their business skills and inspire them to pursue other social enterprises. “Fashion is usually seen as superficial but it’s something that actually makes a difference in people’s lives,” she says. “It’s very important that we tie the two together.”
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Photos courtesy of Styleta.