Transitions pupil Hadi El Shabazz is managing this system on behalf of the Trend Merchandising and Design tutorial program.
SAN MARCOS — In a classroom on the north finish of campus, Hadi El Shabazz is freely giving garments.
As Comet Closet’s pupil supervisor, El Shabazz retains the cabinets of costume pants and blouses as tidy as these in any division retailer. He says that he sees it as a clothes boutique with no money register.
“We’ve got some people who find themselves in a foul scenario and haven’t any cash, and it is very nice to supply them a spot to return and get some garments,” he mentioned. “Even when I am right here for all these hours and just one particular person comes and picks up some garments, it is price it.”
Closed at some stage in the COVID-19 pandemic, Comet Closet, which is stocked by donations and obtainable to college students throughout common faculty hours or by appointment, is now open once more offering clothes to college students simply in time for holidays.
Presently appearing as “retailer supervisor,” El Shabazz arrived at Palomar in the summertime of 2022 as a brand new pupil within the college’s Transitions program, which helps beforehand incarcerated people modify to a school campus and start or resume with success your schooling.
He says he fell in love with trend as a toddler and has at all times been recognized for dressing nicely, however he did not contemplate trend as a profession till he got here to Palomar and located a program that teaches college students easy methods to design, produce, and Promote garments.
Even throughout his incarceration in Northern California, El Shabazz mentioned, he made certain to decorate nicely: “I am a kind of guys who would iron my state garments. I created a method solely from state garments: at all times have a fold, have a brand new jacket. I assume garments could make you are feeling rather a lot higher about your self once you work together with different individuals.”
The way in which an individual attire is all about confidence, she added: “That is one thing just a little little bit of trend can do for somebody. Little issues go a great distance in life.”
Comet Closet is situated in FD-Four, a big classroom the place trend design and merchandising college students work collectively on tasks. It initially launched in 2018 and provides a choice of males’s and ladies’s enterprise and daywear, all free to college students, mentioned Rita Campo Griggs, an affiliate professor of trend design and merchandising.
“We love seeing college students stroll into the Comet Closet and stroll away with some free outfits or vacation presents,” Campo Griggs mentioned. “And it is fully a student-led effort, as our Visible Merchandising college students create the shop and the shows.”
