Outifts hang in Bucky’s Closet — **Photo by Clara Hudson.** Outfits hang in Bucky’s Closet.

In a collaboration between the Center for Sustainability, Lead Scholars program and Career Center, Santa Clara University introduced its first thrift store: Buck’s Closet. Focused on creating access to professional attire in a sustainable manner, Bucky’s Closet made its debut in September and is now in full swing

One of the main three components of its mission is to focus on sustainability.

Veronica Johnson, program manager at the Center for Sustainability, said that Bucky’s Closet is “building the culture of reuse and thrifting, and promoting this idea of the circular economy, where things don’t go to waste and they don’t go to landfill—really bringing in that mindset of mindful consumption.”

Although sustainability is not the only focus of the thrift store, the Career Center’s goal with the thrift store is to have professional clothing readily accessible so that students are prepared for interviews and job fairs.

The final component they wanted to incorporate into the store was to have it be affordable. Therefore, Bucky’s closet is free for all students, while also accepting financial donations.

“Students who are low-income, or first-generation or are in dire need of clothes are at a disadvantage because, you know, professional clothing is expensive,” Johnson said. “Bucky’s closet is even more affordable than fast fashion. We’re free.”

Fast fashion brands such as Shein, Zara and H&M mass-produce clothes via underpaid labor, bad working practices and cheap, toxic ingredients. Bucky’s Closet works to combat the unsustainable nature of fast fashion by preventing clothing from ending up in the trash. It provides the opportunity for people who want to get rid of certain clothes to be able to do so on campus rather than throwing them away or even donating them to Goodwill.

“Bucky’s Closet works to combat the unsustainable nature of fast fashion by preventing clothing from ending up in the trash”

Most of the current clothes in the store are from move-out last year or leftovers from the Rainbow Resource Center’s clothing drive which brought in a total of 1500-2000 pounds of clothes. Additionally, throughout the summer, faculty, staff and the board of regents donated business and professional clothing that are now available in the store.

Prior to Johnson joining the staff at the Center for Sustainability two years ago, conversations about the creation of Bucky’s Closet were already in circulation. Space proved to be a constraint, so instead, they installed Swap for Good, a temporary and free pop-up thrift shop to “[facilitate] the swapping of clothes to help alleviate that waste,” Johnson said.

Conversations between the Career Center and the Lead Scholars program built upon this, shifting the goal to developing student access to professional clothing. What began as a presentation for students on businesswear and a shopping trip for LEAD scholars to buy business clothes turned into Bucky’s Closet after the Center for Sustainability joined the conversation.

The current space is only available for the remainder of the 2024-25 academic year.

“If we want Bucky’s Closet to continue year after year, we have to make the case that this is a resource that people want and need and it's being utilized too in school,” said Johnson.

Bucky’s Closet is currently open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Daly Science Center, Room 317.