Transforming Quilts into Garments: Designers' Experiences with Upcycling

Team: Colleen Pokorny (PI), Dr. Bye (advisor)

Program: Apparel Design Graduate Program

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to describe designers' experiences when upcycling second-hand quilts into fashion garments.

This research examined the intersection of quiltmaking, sustainability, and fashion through the experiences of designers. The upcycling of quilts into fashion garments is a hot-button issue. Quilt scholars have decried the cutting of quilts, declaring the destruction of historical quilts as devaluing quiltmaking's cultural heritage (McCormick, 2013). Conversely, designers see this as a sustainable way to keep discarded quilts out of landfills and elevate quiltmaking publicly (Berlinger, 2022). As a result, the question ""to cut or not to cut"" has divided quiltmakers, scholars, historians, and designers.

Designers play a critical role in the reinterpretation of quiltmaking material culture as they initiate the transformation of quilt to garment. Previous research examined consumers' changing values towards quilts due to Ralph Lauren's Fall/Winter 1982 collection (McCormick, 2013). However, research has not examined designers' experiences when upcycling quilts into fashion garments.

A three-pronged approach to phenomenology was used, including interviews with 18 designers, photo elicitation, and content analysis. Data analysis was emergent in nature, following the concept of the hermeneutic circle to describe the essence of the designers' experiences. The findings from designers' voices provide new ways of thinking about what it means to reuse, repurpose, and re-value material culture through design processes.