FAQ
What is the Garment Service?
The Garment Project empowers those in recovery from eating disorders by providing them with new, size-less clothing. The vision of the Garment Service is to provide candidates a long-term, healthy relationship with clothing by giving people space in early recovery to find worth in how clothing makes them feel free of any negative associations related to size.
Years of professional styling experience allow us to curate selections specific to each individual. Whether they have an existing love for fashion or don’t know where to start, Garment gives an opportunity to recovery warriors to grow their confidence through clothing. With the Garment Service, selected candidates receive a curated package of clothing and accessories valued anywhere from $600-$1000. In addition, a designated treatment professional of the candidate’s treatment team, such as a therapist or dietician, will receive a style guide complete with outfit inspirations, suggestions for mixing-and-matching the candidate’s new pieces, and care and wash tips to guide them through the try-on process with candidates and for the candidate’s future use after styling. This eliminates the need for the treatment professional to act as a fashion expert, freeing up the time and space to discuss what the individual is feeling.
What is Garment’s relationship with eating disorder treatment professionals?
Everyone's treatment and recovery processes are different. At Garment, we aim to serve clients who will benefit the most from the full experience of collaborating with us. We don't just provide free, size-less clothes. Our goal is to create that initial shopping and try-on experience for our candidates in a trusted, safe environment, with a treatment professional that they can communicate with easily through a strong therapeutic relationship rather than in an overwhelming retail setting or in their bedroom alone. Throughout the shopping and try-on experience, the candidate is encouraged to have conversations about what feelings arise. For example, if some items don't work, their treatment professional can guide candidates about how to handle those emotions at that moment and find the best coping techniques for the future when they try on clothing in a store.
The only communication we have with the client is through a confidential style questionnaire. Not only does this help us get to know their fashion preferences, but it can also help the client identify what their healthy self actually likes, without risking any privacy concerns. We also rely on a brief survey with the nominator or other designated treatment professionals to narrow down the fit. No names, no photos, and no measurements are necessary. By relying on the relationship between Garment candidates and our treatment partners, we are giving candidates tools that they can use in the future when, inevitably, an item does not fit, they can be set up for success and continue moving forward with their recovery.
When is a candidate ready for Garment’s services?
If a candidate is actively working towards recovery, is honest about struggles, slips, and their efforts to keep trying, and they have a treatment professional willing to share and advocate on their behalf, then we believe that individual is a good candidate for Garment. However, recognizing the uniqueness of each individual’s recovery process, Garment relies on treatment professionals to determine when it’s the right point in a person's process to receive our services.
Who can nominate candidates?
We ask that candidates be nominated by their treatment professionals using the above criteria as a guide. If you are someone who is currently in eating disorder treatment, interested in finding confidence through fashion, and think that you are ready for Garment’s Service, then we suggest that you start a conversation with your treatment team to talk about whether you are ready for nomination.
What does the nomination and styling process look like?
Beginning January 2021, our nomination window will be open for the first 10 days of each month. On the 12th of the month or the next business day (when the 12th occurs on a weekend), nominating treatment professionals will be notified of whether if their client has been selected and they will receive a personalized link for Garment to collect enough information for our team to begin styling using both a candidate style questionnaire and a treatment professional survey. Garment will not communicate directly with the candidate. To protect patient identity, we expect the nominating treatment professional to distribute the questionnaire to the candidate digitally or during the course of a one-on-one session with the candidate.
The candidate and treatment professional will have 3 days to respond to the style questionnaire and treatment professional survey before the link expires. We will send one follow-up email 24 hours prior to expiration as a reminder to complete the questionnaire and survey. If these are not completed in this window, the Garment team will notify the treatment professional and a new candidate will be chosen from the nominees. When the questionnaire is completed in-detail and returned to the Garment team, the styling process will begin. A curated box of clothing will be hand-styled by Garment for the candidate and sent no later than the last business day of the month.
If a client is not chosen in one month, the same candidate may be nominated again in a future month.
How does Garment choose a candidate?
Garment utilizes a 30-point rubric to standardize candidate selection. This allows all candidates to be assessed on the same criteria and ensures fairness in the process. To provide transparency, a copy of the rubric can be found here.
After all candidate nominations are received, a selected group of Garment board members are designated each month to review and assess nominee applications. Scores for each are then averaged and the 3-5 applications with the highest totals out of 30 are chosen for further discussion. At this time, a group decision will be made on which candidate(s) to support for the month.
What does the try-on experience look like for a Garment candidate?
Garment requires that a clothing try-on take place as a session or one-on-one with a trusted member of the candidate’s treatment team. We ask that this treatment professional has a strong therapeutic relationship with the candidate. A candidate should trust this treatment professional to serve as the candidate’s mirror and in turn, limit the access the candidate has to real reflections, such as mirrors, glass, or other reflective surfaces. By focusing on how the candidate feels in the clothes during the try-on session versus how their eating disorder thinks they look in the mirror, they are able to more easily make decisions based on style and comfort.
To support the process, the treatment professional can ask questions that emphasize function over appearance, such as:
“Can you dance in this?”
“Does the color make you happy?”
“Is it cozy enough for take-out and a movie?”
COVID-19 Caveat: Although we understand that many treatment professionals are now meeting face-to-face again with clients, our first goal will always be the safety of everyone involved in Garment’s process. If your organization has restricted face-to-face sessions with clients and is continuing to meet virtually, we ask that you postpone any nominations until it is once again safe to meet in person to ensure that candidates can have an equal opportunity to receive Garment’s Service in an environment that sets them up for success.
Is Garment’s Service free?
The Garment service is currently free of charge to candidates, but since we rely entirely on donations to support our mission, we request a donation of $100 per candidate simply to offset the cost of shipping the boxes of sizeless clothing to their new destination.
We suggest that the donation be covered by treatment organizations, by the candidates themselves, or by other individuals who may want to financially sponsor the candidate, such as family, caregiver, or other support people.
Garment always wants to benefit deserving candidates, without letting finances become a barrier, so if any candidate and their team are unable to meet the requested donation, we ask that they support Garment by setting up a Facebook fundraiser or by donating through purchases on AmazonSmile.
How else can you support Garment?
As a 501(c) 3 organization, Garment is funded by the generosity of donors, through grants and individual donations. Every dollar goes towards reaching our mission of providing sizeless clothing to those in eating disorder recovery.