Fitting Futures: Sewing university, community engagement

From her first trip off campus with the Elon College Fellows Program, senior Brooke Gustafson knew she wanted to use her fellows research project to engage the university with the local community. 

“I realized then and there that there was a large bubble around Elon University that wasn't connecting with the community,” Gustafson said. 

That led Gustafson to create her research project, Fitting Futures, which aims to provide free clothing alterations to the local community and establish a model for other universities to replicate the program. 

Gustafson is a theatrical design and technology, and arts administration double major. She said she began doing theater in middle and high school, where she also discovered a love for working behind the scenes. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gustafson said she started sewing masks with her mom, which unlocked a passion for sewing and eventually costume design. 

Coming into Elon, she said she fell in love with the campus during a visit, and the Elon College Fellows Program provided her with what she needed to attend the school. A large aspect of the program is completing a research project, and for Gustafson, it became Fitting Futures. 

Gustafson said she wanted to take her skill set and apply it to her hope of community engagement. Initially, she considered starting an organization to provide the local community with clothing. After researching local organizations, Gustafson realized alteration services were missing from the community. 

“Other organizations already have methods in which they can provide free attire to people in need, whether that be interview attire or prom dress attire, but there were no organizations that existed for providing free alterations,” Gustafson said. “That made me incredibly curious about, ‘Okay, well, why would that be important to provide alterations for people?’”

Gustafson’s research aims to create a guidebook model for university costume shops to provide free alteration events for the local community, as well as look at the importance of alterations. In the fall of 2024, she received an Elon Leadership Prize, giving her $7,500 to put toward her research.

Throughout her research, Gustafson hosted two events at the Elon Costume Shop in the Center for the Arts, and a pop-up shop at the Alamance County Public Library’s Community Closet, where she collected data and tested the event model. 

Professor of the performing arts, Kayla Higbee, and professor of arts administration David McGraw serve as Gustafson’s mentors for the project. 

Higbee specializes in costume design and said she helps Gustafson focus on best practices for consent during alterations and making people comfortable in the fitting room. Higbee said getting to help people feel good about their bodies and the alteration experience made her want to join the project. 

“When you're walking in somewhere that's an intimate space, and you don't know what to expect, you want to make sure people feel safe,” Higbee said. “That was what really sparked me to want to join her.”

Higbee said she appreciates that this project enables students to utilize their skills for the greater good. 

“To be able to not only use our skills to be of service to our students in the university, but to the community at large is really great,” Higbee said. “I think we have a specific, certain set of skills that not a lot of people do. So I'm really excited about her guidebook that she's producing and going to send out to people, and I really hope that inspires other costume shops.”

McGraw has helped Gustafson figure out the logistics and timeline for collecting data for the project. Additionally, he helped her meet with community leaders to learn what the local community really needed. 

“Having Brooke meet with community leaders and asking them what they needed, that really is the starting point for any of these community engagement projects,” McGraw said. “Otherwise, we're just coming in and saying what we think is best, but to listen and to see how we can contribute based on our resources and our gifts.”

McGraw said the project provides a way to change the perspective of universities and their impact on the communities around them. 

“There's always the risk of community members seeing universities as being separate, as being elitist, as not serving a function in the community, but just drawing upon community resources,” McGraw said. “This is a way for the faculty, the staff, the students of these universities to really give back and show their connection with the community.” 

Gustafson said her research has found that clothing alterations are important because they provide people with a sense of dignity and confidence. She got the chance to see this in action during her alteration events at Elon on April 19 and Dec. 1, as well as during the pop-up at the Community Closet event Nov. 8. 

“A lot of times when you don't have a lot of income to purchase personal clothing for yourself, you get secondhand stuff, which I'm very used to as well for my whole childhood, but it doesn't fit you exactly, slightly off,” Gustafson said at the Community Closet event. “It's one thing to have professional attire, but it's a whole other thing for it to fit you and for it to be specifically made for you. It brings a different level of confidence, and that's what we're hoping to achieve.”

Gustafson said the events are all staffed by student volunteers serving as greeters, photographers and seamsters to complete the alterations. She said students can receive volunteer hours or extra credit for their work, but many don’t need the incentive. 

“There's always at least I'd say 30% of students who aren't doing it for any sort of hours or incentives or extra credit in a class, which are the things that I provide for them, but they're just like, ‘Oh no, I just want to serve, I just want to join you.’” Gustafson said. “That's been really sweet to see that students do want to get involved.”

Maverick Powell is a junior theatrical design and technology student with a focus on costuming. Powell said they have participated in both of the on-campus events Gustafson has done and they love the community engagement aspect of the project. 

“I just like seeing people excited about the clothes that they wear, because I get excited about the clothes that I wear,” Powell said at the Fitting Futures event Dec. 1. “We just fitted somebody for a suit, and he was beyond happy with how it was going. So I like being able to make people happy with this.”

Joy Bousum attended the Dec. 1 event and said it was a great chance to get clothes fixed and interact with the university. 

“I'd had some clothes that I had not been able to wear because they needed to be altered,” Bousum said. “So this opportunity seemed perfect, also the fact that it was a free opportunity for people in the community, I feel like I've gotten clothes altered before, and it costs money, and it's money that not everyone has. So this is really cool.”

Gustafson also took her research off campus Nov. 8, hosting a booth at May Memorial Library’s Community Closet event, which focused on providing community members with free professional attire. 

Gustafson said meeting the community members who attended the Community Closet was one of her favorite memories in her research thus far.

“There was a lady who we completed an alteration for, who was filling out the second half of our survey and got to one of the questions about how it impacted your confidence level, and she started crying out of joy,” Gustafson said. “She turned and looked to us and said, ‘This is the first time that anything has ever fit me in my life, and I really appreciate what you guys are doing to give people back their dignity.’ And that made me start crying.”

Going into the final semester of her research, Gustafson said the goal is to put together her guidebook and promote the project so other universities can begin doing similar alteration events. 

Gustafson said she has loved getting to use her opportunities to make an impact, no matter how small. 

“Even though this project right now is just at Elon local level, getting to make an impact, even on one life, through giving free alterations means everything to me,” Gustafson said. 

After college, Gustafson said she hopes to continue offering alteration services in a similar capacity.

“Who am I to continue the rest of my life making money off of my skills when I could also be giving some of that to others who need it more than me?” Gustafson said. “It's meant a lot to me. It's given me a passion for what I do, a passion for service and loving others unconditionally.”