SUNY Oswego’s Career Services and SHOP (Students Helping Oz Peers) have joined together to open up a pop-up boutique to provide students with free professional clothing. 

This SHOP x Career Studio’s boutique is located in the Career Studio, located in the Compass Resource Center (145 Marano Campus Center). 

Students are encouraged to go during Career Studio hours, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, but can also pick out clothing in the Resource Center 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. if no class is in session, said Megan Mazzoccone, assistant director of Career Services. 

Students do not need to sign out clothing,  but can just come in and either keep or just borrow clothes without question.

Mazzoccone and April Lopez, assistant dean of students, both mentioned the vulnerability it takes to ask for help and how their goal was to create a welcoming space for students. 

“We like to think of this as a chic, safe space, where students can take what they need or want without anyone signing items out,” Mazzoccone said. 

Both Lopez and Mazzoccone said their top priority is making sure students’ needs and requests are put first, even in picking pieces for the boutique. 

The boutique came about at the perfect time. Lopez was working to get SHOP to collaborate with other organizations, and Career Services was looking to make resources more accessible and exciting. 

Lopez was grateful that SUNY Oswego has “so many places” like The Compass where students could engage: “I feel like that's why this is such a special place because I feel like a lot of students, especially those seeking resources related to employment or internships coming here.”

The clothing donations are another big collaboration. Donations were first started directly from SHOP, and Mazzoccone and some of the staff at The Compass began supplying accessories and other clothing items from shopping around thrift stores, Lopez said. 

Donations accepted

“Donations are being accepted in this space and if this space ever runs low we can always grab more from the SHOP physical space,” Lopez said of the primary location in the basement of Penfield Library. 

“Our professional staff see it and get excited and feel like ‘let me clean out my closet,’” she said. 

“I always think whenever there's a collaboration like this it's not just two people doing it,” Mazzoccone said. “So I just think that's really important to kind of know that all of SHOP works together, [Lopez’s] intern, our interns, our staff, as well as the Office of Experiential Learning and SOFE [Student Orientation and Family Engagement]. This was a full office initiative.”

This professional pop-up boutique is working to normalize resources and create comfort in asking for help. 

“Normalizing being able to utilize resources … I think that's what makes SHOP, the physical shop space, kind of tricky,” Lopez said. “People know it's a pantry and with that vulnerability with the stigma associated with that it can be really challenging, but then when you put a space together and it's super cute and call it a boutique; it feels normal.” 

And that is exactly what the boutique is doing. At the grand opening for the boutique, students were taking pieces, trying on items and taking professional photos at the Career Services LinkedIn photobooth, Mazzoccone said. 

With the demand for clothing, both Mazzoccone and Lopez can see the boutique continuing and growing to give professional attire to Oswego students.

-- Written by Natalie Glosek of the Class of 2026