About Smarter Uniforms

What We Do

Smarter Uniforms was established in 2017 in Brighton & Hove and was set up to keep good quality school uniforms in circulation, save parents money and save our planet's resources.

We established 11 school partners around Brighton & Hove. We worked together with the school community to provide thousands of affordable uniforms to families for a fraction of the price of new. Our small team worked very hard collecting donations, sorting and selling all the good quality uniforms back to our community in Brighton & Hove.

Operating such a big project with a small team became increasingly hard to manage due to the immense volumes of donations, lack of continuous funding and difficulty in recruiting volunteers after the pandemic.

So in 2023, we changed how we delivered our service. There are now two key elements to our work:

We have created an online school uniforms marketplace where families can buy and sell low-cost second-hand uniforms to each other. With the Smarter Uniforms Marketplace, uniforms from primary and secondary schools alike can be listed, graded and sold from parent to parent easily and quickly. As of December 2023, we have over 450 registered users and since April 2023 over 150 families have benefited from sales on the marketplace.

Secondly, we have a free school uniform programme. We run pop-up events and host stalls at community events where anyone can access good-quality school uniforms for free. We have also set up a network of uniform rails across the city - these rails have uniforms that anyone can access all year round for free. We help keep them stocked up and the community organisations that are hosting them, top them up with donations they receive too. We are hoping to set up more rails in the future.

On a mission to reduce carbon footprint, save families money & keeping good quality uniforms out of landfills!

Smarter Uniforms is determined to prolong the life of school uniforms to make them more affordable and to help protect our planet's resources. By reusing uniforms we are saving approximately 2/3 off new prices and keeping tonnes of waste from landfills.

Smarter Uniforms was founded in Brighton in 2017 and so far has had a great impact. By the end of 2023 we have:

• Prevented nearly 3 tonnes of textile waste and rehomed over 14, 000 items.
• Saved parents over £128K on uniform purchases, approx 2/3 off full uniform prices when buying new.
• Fundraised more than £5,000 for local schools.