Good Vibes Only: Hanks High launches fashion boutique, gives students retail experience

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)— Hanks High School hosted a special ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this week to celebrate the opening of the Forever Swap Boutique. It’s a student-run secondhand clothing exchange that fashion design students will manage.

This iniative goes beyond fashion; it will provide a hands-on learning environment as students learn how to manage a boutique.

Students will bring gently used clothing and exchange it for other store items completely free of charge.

The fashion design teacher at Hanks High, Rita Sanchez Garcia, said she wanted to help Hanks High students feel stylish and confident! She wants to ensure no student goes without the clothing they need.

Over the last few months, her students had been working on the boutique. She was happy seeing it all come together!

“I was emotional because it's been a process. It's been a lot of work. But, you know, I'm so grateful,” she added.

The boutique is now open exclusively to Hanks High School students.

Fashion design students will help collect, wash, hang, organize, and manage the clothing. Special education students will also develop practical life and job skills.

"So they're learning how to pour the soap into the dishwasher, and then they're learning how to set it on the right settings, and then they're learning how to use a dryer. And then they're hanging with the clothes facing the front. And so they're learning how to fold jeans,” Sanchez Garcia said.

YISD Superintendent Dr. Xavier De La Torre said this is a great opportunity, as students will be able to develop skills in the retail and fashion industry.

“I think families of children with special needs, students with special needs really appreciate when an institution, a school district, gives their children marketable skills and gives them access to skills and knowledge and other abilities that will help them in their life, not just while they're in school with us, but once they graduate,” the superintendent said.

The boutique is also made possible thanks to a partnership with the Outlet Shoppes at El Paso. The Outlet donated fixtures and will continue to support this project through a monthly fashion incentive. Participating Hanks High students may be randomly selected to receive a $25 Outlet Shoppes gift card toward a new piece of clothing.

The general manager of the Outlet Shoppes at El Paso, Carlos Rodriguez, said he was impressed when he first walked into the fashion boutique inside the high school.

“It looks like it could be a store at the shops. You know, it really looks like a store. This does not look like a thrift shop. It does not look like a thrift store. This looks like a true experience. Yes, for the students to come in, but also the life lessons of the students that are going to be working on this and the people that are involved with this program. You know, these are life lessons,” he said.

Some fashion students said they were excited to continue this initiative and learn more about retail!

"Work with a lot of people. You get to work with sorting, and you get to learn new things when it comes to clothing and fashion and all of that. So yes, you for sure get the full experience,” Hanks senior Kenia Gomez said.

Sanchez Garcia explained that students will gain access to clothing and fashion resources, families have another resource for clothing, and the community gets a model for giving clothing a second life.

Anyone interested in donating gently used clothes can drop off items at the front desk at Hanks High School.

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