Dress for Success Hamilton: Charity moves to bigger premises

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Dress for Success Hamilton volunteer stylists Cheryl, Amy and Mary at Rosy. Photo / Dress for Success Hamilton

Dress for Success Hamilton has chalked up a success of its own, moving to bigger premises and opening a pre-loved clothing store, Rosy.

The charity has been dressing and empowering Waikato women for their employment journeys since 2002 and had outgrown its offices in Alexandra St.

Dress for Success’ digital coordinator Michelle Rae says thanks to the new space on London St, Dress for Success is able to offer more workshops.

“We are really excited about our new ventures. Just recently, we had a ... session for our clients where experts shared their tips and tricks for easy makeup and hairstyles for work. We wouldn’t have been able to do this in our old premises. We can now hold more workshops and also want to look beyond clothes.”

Dress for Success is mostly known for its free employment dressing programme, which provides women with work-appropriate outfits.

“A lot of women that come to us have been out of the workforce for a while ... and don’t know what to wear,” Rae says.

“They get one outfit... when they go for an interview and then a capsule wardrobe after they get a job, so they have about a week’s worth of [work] clothes until they have a regular income to afford their own.”

Anyone in need of help can just ring up. One of the charity’s recent clients was Nobuko, who used to work as a barista at Coffix Cafe below Dress for Success’ old premises.

“An engineer in Japan, Nobuko came to New Zealand in 2017, but because of her English level, she was unable to find a job in her field. She went into hospitality work so she could improve her English skills while talking to customers,” Rae says.

The charity dressed Nobuko for an interview and then again when she secured a role as a fire safety consultant for Smart Fire.

“Buying work clothes was ... a big investment for her while she was working in hospitality, so Dress for Success helped her by ‘giving her a hand up’ with work clothes on the way to success,” Rae says.

Dress for Success is able to provide their clients with outfits thanks to clothing donations from the community.

“We always receive so many amazing donations, but not all of them are suitable for work,” Rae says.

This is where Rosy comes in. The retail shop is open to the public and sells high-quality second-hand clothes with all proceeds supporting Dress for Success.

“It’s similar to a consignment store, a bit like Again & Again. We have great brands and the clothes are in great condition, a lot of them are brand new. It amazes me what kind of [clothes] are donated, we even have a designer rack,” Rae says.

To create a brand for its retail shop, Dress for Success worked with Wintec. Rosy was the brainchild of design student Carmin Erasmus who said Rosy is like “stepping inside your bestie’s closet”.

Rosy is at 169 London St and is open Thursdays and Fridays from 10am to 2pm.

Dress for Success is an international not-for-profit organisation that has 153 affiliates in 30 countries – seven of them in New Zealand.

The charity was founded in New York in 1997 by NYU law student Nancy Lublin in honour of her grandfather, Poppy Max, who was an immigrant from Eastern Europe and worked hard to forge a better life, so Lublin wanted to help others blaze new beginnings too.

Dress for Success Hamilton was founded by Margaret Fraser who visited the Auckland branch with some friends and thought Hamilton would also benefit from this service. To date, Dress for Success Hamilton has dressed more than 3700 Waikato women.

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