Style Swap: Dropoff on May 17 for 1-for-1 dress exchange that supports sustainable fashion habits

Glitz, glam, sparkle, elegance and pizzazz. Short, long and everything in between. That’s just some of what you’ll find in the dresses at the community-organized initiative making its way to the North Shore this weekend.

Here’s how it works: From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. this Saturday, May 17 — just in time for spring cleaning — community members across the North Shore can go to their designated drop-off locations in Winnetka, Highland Park, Glenview, Hawthorn Woods and Northbrook to donate the dresses they and their children have banished to the backs of their closets.

Dropoff locations (10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, May 17):

• Winnetka – 100 Longmeadow Road
• Highland Park – 261 Woodland Drive
• Glenview – 1040 Hunter Road
• Hawthorn Woods – 21 North Empress Drive
• Northbrook – 3900 Oak Ave.

For each dress donated, they will receive one dress credit.

Then, from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24, once all dresses have been collected and sorted, donors can come back to shop for a new dress from the assortment of donated fashion finds.

“I have two daughters [at New Trier], and the amount of clothing I buy them, as I’m sure you can imagine, is crazy,” said Jaimie Altman, who came up with and has been organizing the initiative with her children. “They have so many events to go to that require so many dresses, and teenagers like to wear the latest styles and don’t like to rewear clothes that their friends have seen, which means that their closets are accumulating lots and lots of dresses that are never worn again.”

Altman’s kids spoke to their friends to test the waters and see if the idea would land (and, spoiler alert: It did). She also spoke to fellow moms who shared her distress with the dresses accumulating in their children’s closets from bar and bat mitzvahs, turnabouts, homecomings, birthday parties and all sorts of events.

Through these conversations, Altman’s suspicions were confirmed: Residents were open to and even craved a 1-for-1 dress swap to clean out their families’ closets, create an affordable solution to the challenge of the one-and-done dress struggle and put a small but mighty fork in the road for fast fashion by encouraging sustainable fashion habits.

Thus, North Shore Dress Swap was born, essentially creating a money-free shopping system.

The initiative is entirely volunteer-run by fellow North Shore moms who share Altman’s struggles. She said her friends and other volunteers are helping spread the word and run this Saturday’s dropoffs with volunteers also slated to help organize the dresses throughout the summer in preparation for the big shopping extravaganza in August.

Those who don’t plan to or are unable to donate a dress can still participate as Altman said she and her fellow organizers want everybody to be included in this grassroots community effort.
Anyone not participating in the swap will have the option to purchase the dresses for $25 each.

All proceeds and un-swapped dresses left behind after the August event will be donated to Wings Resale Shop, which supports victims of domestic violence.

Altman said it was important not to put a price valuation on each individual dress, keeping them all priced at $25 or at the 1-to-1 swap.

“This is the first time we’ve ever done this and I wanted to keep it as easy as possible,” she explained. “I think putting valuations on dresses would’ve made things very tricky. You know, we are going to get some very expensive designer dresses and we’re going to get some dresses that people bought off of Amazon, and I’m sure these teenagers look great in whatever they wear regardless of how much it cost.”

She continued, “We kind of figured that if people didn’t want to drop off a dress that was expensive and potentially not get a swap for the same monetary amount, then they could either just not participate or they could look at it as just a charitable donation.”

All dropoffs are classed as donations and are therefore final.

While the initial vision was brought about by Altman’s experiences with her high-school-aged daughters, North Shore Dress Swap does not have an age restriction. Junior high-schoolers, college-aged individuals and adults are all welcome to participate.

There are no style restrictions on dresses either, but Altman said they must be clean and in excellent condition.

For those who cannot attend the drop-off event this Saturday, May 17, Altman said North Shore Dress Swap would be happy to accommodate them and arrange for the drop-off on an alternative date. Such inquiries can be directed to northshoredressswap@gmail.com.

The location for Aug. 24 has yet to be determined but will be posted to the program’s website once finalized.

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