Different parts of ASU came together to plan Fashion Forward, an event organized by the ASU Staff Council Sustainability Program.
Fashion Forward is a clothing drive where the ASU community can shop for free clothes donated by other members of the community and learn about sustainable fashion.
Planning for the event began 10 months ago, with sign-ups for donation boxes in November 2025.
Beginning in January, donation collections began across five campuses. Currently, all donations are being sorted and volunteers are being prepared for the clothing drives.
On April 9 and 10, during "open closet" days, students and staff can pick out clothes and attend educational workshops. The event will close out with a fashion show.
It is rooted in how ASU staff, students and faculty can take personal action to better help their community.
The reason for development is the desire to support sustainable lifestyles and to increase the overall knowledge around sustainability.
The event directed toward the ASU community started five years ago and has successfully grown over the years in its mission and purpose, said Halie Cousineau, the lead of Fashion Forward and associate director of the International Students and Scholars Center.
"Education is an integral part of this event," Cousineau said. "It's action and education."
Having a platform like ASU allows for easier ways to convey information to large numbers of people who make up the University.
"We can act as a whole, where (faculty and students) can both support each other and a larger sustainable initiative," Cousineau said.
The event has collected over 5,000 pounds of clothes and is hoping to reach the goal of 6,000 pounds of clothes this year.
READ MORE: From classroom to catwalk: How ASU is redesigning fashion's impact on the planet
The large amounts of clothing and accessories that are donated to the drive lead Christine Moe, a senior studying business data analytics, to start "sorting parties" for the event to be as organized as possible.
Moe came up with the name, "sorting parties," to make the task look more fun and encourage her co-workers and students to join her.
"Six thousand pounds is really hard to sort and set up," Cousineau said. "So we pre-sort everything. Now is just the big push for momentum."
The event was brought together by over a hundred volunteers, from the ASU Staff Council Sustainability Program to the W. P. Carey School of Business students everyone pitched in some way.
"It is unequivocally impossible to do without the cross collaboration and the support of the staff that are involved in staff council," Cousineau said.
Another goal Fashion Forward works toward is the prevention of fast fashion.
READ MORE: Fashion's dirty secret: Cheap clothing and its towering environmental cost
Rhyan Arunasalam, an ASU alum, said clothes do not always get their fullest use. An event like Fashion Forward allows for these clothes to have multiple lives in their span.
"Finding a second chance in clothing and not just focusing on what's trending out there, because most of the time, especially in this generation, with social media and TikTok, trends are a big thing," Arunasalam said.
Fashion Forward allows students to find ways to not only be more sustainable and mindful of spending less money but to also be more creative.
"There's all these ways when where we can be sustainable, support Earth and be fun, and still be trendy and still be presentable," Arunasalam said.
Edited by Kasturi Tale, Senna James and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at csfishe4@asu.edu.
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