Cosima ‘22 is bringing affordable clothing to students through her capstone project: Closet Switch. ClosetSwitch, organized by Cosima and her sister, Chiara, is a clothing trade currently available at Marlborough and Washington University in St. Louis, where Chiara is a student.
To participate in ClosetSwitch, students sign up on the website and post pictures and details of the clothing items they want to trade. Students then receive tokens on the website based on the item type. The tokens are then used to purchase new items, which students pick up at select locations on their school campuses.
“I know my sister is thinking about doing something with lockers at college just because it is so much bigger and there’s not always going to be a time where she can be there to watch the pickup and dropoff locations…, so you get an email or a text notification to drop it off at the locker and then one to go pick it up,” Cosima said.
Cosima started ClosetSwitch when she and her sister identified an issue in their everyday lives while brainstorming to create an idea that Munzi could work on during an entrepreneurship camp she participated in during quarantine.
“Me and my sister were thinking about how we have little closet space, and how a lot of the closet space we do have is taken up by clothes that we barely wear anymore,” Cosima said. “We were just kind of thinking: how could we get rid of these clothes and get new clothes that we actually wear, for affordability and sustainability.”
The main challenge for Cosima has been gaining participation in ClosetSwitch. As user engagement is an essential component of ClosetSwitch, Cosima has been working towards increasing student participation by reaching out to different people about her project and speaking at class meetings.
“I hope the more people that join, the more people that will post and then the more inventory we’ll have and the more options for people to choose from…and everyone will have access to more clothes,” Cosima said.
Although Cosima’s Marlborough career will come to an end when she graduates this school year, she plans to continue working on the project with her sister. Cosima hopes that ClosetSwitch will expand to more college campuses across the country, providing students with an affordable and sustainable way to gain new clothing.
