A new nonprofit is helping women tackle one of the more common but often overlooked challenges during eating disorder recovery: build a new wardrobe.
The Garment Project provides women in recovery with brand-new, tagless, sizeless clothing for free. The goal of the Pittsburgh-based organisation, which launched in February, is to give patrons a starter wardrobe of new clothing to get them through the first six months of the recovery process.
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By removing sizing info, Garment helps women leaving recovery to focus on their health, rather than size labels that can be triggering and cause setbacks. It likewise removes the sizable fiscal onu that comes with entirely replacing your closet.
“This is something that’s missing, ” mentioned Garment cofounder Erin Drischler. “No one else is providing this.”
Drischler knows these challenges firsthand. She lived with an eating disorder for 14 years, until she completed a recovery program in her early 20 s that mended her relationship with her body and food.
Along with her business spouse and fianc Jordan Tomb, Drischler launched Garment to help women like her address the wardrobe-related pressures after care and during recovery.
“I was still giving my clothing too much power over my ability to recover, ” she mentioned. “My closet ranged in size because my weight fluctuated severely throughout my struggle. Items that still fit led to terror and inconvenience due to the number on the label. Going to the mall and trying on clothes was overwhelming and quickly disclosed my new size or sizes depending on the store.”
Image: Politenes of the garment project
Here’s how the program studies: Garment collaborators with care facilities around the country to connect with women in recovery. When a woman nears the end of in-patient care, her care squad mails her measurings which typically logged for insurance purposes to Garment, leaving the woman out of the process.
“This is something that’s missing. No one else is providing this.”
Through partnerships with storages like ModCloth, Rue2 1, and local Pittsburgh brands, Garment has a stocked inventorying with a detailed log of true measurements for every item. This ensures the items will fit a given patron, so they can cut off all labels and sizing info in the process.
Once the nonprofit matches the above measures, each wife receives a package of basics, including T-shirts, bras, underwear, and jeans. They likewise receive a curated, individualized, and secure online browse page to find additional items to fit their personal styles again, all for free.
Tomb and Drischler, creators of The Garment Project.
Image: Politenes of The Garment PRoject
Garment promotes clients to try their new items with a trusted care facility staff member, who can offer support if needed. Any unwanted items can be shipped back to the nonprofit for free in a pre-paid box.
“Our partnerships with the care centres give us a platform to be determined about women who are at the right phase in their recovery process to utilize Garment, ” Tomb mentioned. “It’s the foundation for constructing sure we are able to provide a service that is simple, secure, and most importantly keeps the focus on healthy recovery.”
About 20 million women in the U.S. will experience a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in “peoples lives”. According to Garment, simply one in 10 of those women will receive expensive care, which can run up to $30,000 per month.
“I was still giving my clothing too much power over my ability to recover.”
This free service, then, is specially ideal for women who are already struggling to render the high price-tag of treatment.
“To return home to a wardrobe full of clothes that are too small or too big or that I used at one point as a tool to measure my own torso wasn’t healthy, ” Drischler mentioned. “Not having the financial stability to replace a lot of those items so I could feel confident going back into work or going back to school there’s too many people going through that.”
So far, Garment is working with six care facilities around the country, but the team hopes to broaden its network as development projects grows. They likewise plan to include men’s clothing in the future, hoping to serve the estimated 10 million humankinds retrieving from eating disorder in the U.S.
“Recovery is possible for everyone, ” Drischler mentioned. “A few years ago, I could not say that convict out loud, let alone believe it true for myself … Although each person has a different story and struggle, this is really possible to live a are recovered life, free from your eating disorder.”
If you want to talk to someone about your experience with disordered eating, text the Crisis Text Line at 741 -7 41. Organizations like the National Eating Disorder Association ( U.S .), National Eating Disorder Information Centre ( Canada ), The Butterfly Foundation ( Australia ), the National Centre for Eating Disorders ( UK) and We Bite Back can also offer support .
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