Arlene Oliver
Arlene Oliver may have missed her calling. A retired legal secretary, shopping has been her favorite girl-time sport. She knows all the stores and boutiques. Mix and match outfit coordination is in her DNA.
But she's even more passionate about helping others shop. Her particular gift is helping people with empty closets, or women who are self-conscious in stores, women who don't know their sizes, mostly women whose only impediment to having a job is something to wear. In short, her clients are women whose shopping is desperate to be cared about, and perhaps she's the perfect person for the job.
She has volunteered up to three days a week for the YWCA's Your Sister's Closet for the past 10 years. Women are referred to the closet by employment and social service agencies all over town. None have clothing appropriate for work, let alone nice enough for an interview.
Anyone who ever visited Mills Touché may feel some déjà vu upon entering Your Sister's Closet. An intimate shopping experience, intended for one client at a time, it's finished with walnut-stained, wall-size fixtures, shelves, cabinets and an entire room of racks for hangers. The shop was specifically designed to house Your Sister's Closet when the new YWCA building went up in 2007.
"We have this very nice reception area," Oliver says, "and we bring them in and sit them down and visit with them for a little bit. Tell them what we can do for them ... find out what their plans are." She doesn't pry, she says, but is happy to listen.
The goal is to be like a boutique experience. Women pick out things they like, and then come out of the dressing room in their first outfit; Oliver considers what other sizes and pieces might work and brings them for the client to try. Women leave with two or three shopping bags full of skirts, blouses, pants, shoes, bags, bras, and accessories, all coordinated to provide one confidence-building interview outfit, and enough other clothes for a full week's work.
Oliver spends one day a week sorting through donations and figuring out what else the shop should have on hand. She spends another day shopping and gathering donations. Through an arrangement with Twice As Nice, she is able to swap out good things the Closet can't use for sizes, especially large shoe sizes, that are in demand. Clothes and accessories come from all over, including upscale sources like J Jill and Brighton. Raytheon and others hold "clothes-raisers," and people sometimes ask their friends to donate clothes instead of bringing gifts for special occasions.
Oliver says, "When you stop working, all of a sudden you have a closet full of clothes you don't use." It was when she was ready to give hers away that she discovered the closet and committed to help. Former client Tonya Haymore says, "That people came and donated the specific idea of 'I'm going to help somebody get a job, it really made me feel ... wow ..."
— Linda Ray
