I mentioned last time around that my feathers had been ruffled over seeing people turn quilts into trendy fashion (and they still are). Well, I took my feelings and channeled them into a letter to the editor of Texas Monthly. No idea if they will do anything with it, but it allowed me some release knowing that I had shared a fuller picture with someone at a place of interlocution about why this was an upsetting practice, period, and not just to me.

Wanna see what I said? Here's the article that started it all. And below is my letter in its entirety. I've already had some lively discussions with friends about this topic, and I welcome more with any of y'all. 

✌🏼

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Dear TM:

It astounds me that anyone would take a quilt (a multi-layered, handcrafted, time-intensive blanket), with dozens, often over a hundred hours into creating an heirloom piece which will last generations, and very unceremoniously slice it up and make a jacket out of it. Turn it into a trendy fashion item. This act is not commendable, it is profane. Gross, wasteful, and lazy are all words which came to mind while reading. You open with the descriptor of giving “vintage textiles a new purpose.” But does a textile, or any good, that is imminently useful really need a new purpose?
Let’s start with the posit that the “quilted materials” being used for this conversion are sitting in a thrift store gathering dust. Those materials still retain 100% of their original usability. It’s not at all the same as an out of style jacket or dress in the same thrift shop that could maybe be worn as-is, or could very likely use some rework. No, a quilt is a blanket, and a blanket is always useful.
A quilt is not only a home good, but one of the most useful home goods there is. In and of itself, it’s a blanket: you can cover yourself with it to keep warm, lay on top of it to protect yourself from the ground, or even hang it up to provide shelter. Versatile and useful. Factor in, as well, the fact that quilts are easily repairable. You can always just patch it with a square of cotton and a threaded needle. Add a cut of batting behind in the middle if the hole runs deep. If it gets dirty, you can manage just fine with a spot clean for spills, and hanging it in fresh air to freshen. The quilt, you see, is the very picture of sustainability: it is made to last, easy to care for, and simple to repair.

Picture, then, taking this very sustainable item and laying a pattern for a jacket piece over the top, and then slicing out these pattern parts. The blanket has been destroyed. And in that act, someone else’s hard work, long hours, numb fingertips, and cramping hands are summarily disregarded and treated like by-the-yard fabric from the big box store.
Mind you, I don’t disagree with the style of clothing. It’s not my personal style, but who cares? Lots of things aren’t my style, and I don’t have any beef for that reason. My beef comes from the cheapening of this art and turning it into fast fashion. Fast fashion, which we the people of 2021 are supposed to have put far behind us. The intent here may be a fantasy of “forever pieces,” but let’s face it: this is a trend. It’s always important to see what new clothes the emperor is wearing, and y’all, this time he took Nana’s good quilt and made a Winter ’21 jacket out of it.

I know the other side because I quilt. I have quilted for about 15 years now, and it is one of my greatest joys. I come from a long line of women who both sewed professionally and sewed to keep their family warm at night and from walking out the door naked. There is a certain joy that comes with the act of sewing. Quilting itself, though, is an act of love. It is almost impossible to do without holding a vision of the recipient snuggled under the final product, warm and happy.
And because I quilt, I wonder: Why don’t they just quilt these jackets? Instead of slicing and dicing good quilts that someone else would be perfectly happy to have as a blanket, why not use that jacket piece pattern and quilt their materials from scratch? Yes, it’s a lot harder than taking scissors to a quilt. And it takes practice to get good at it. But it’s easily doable for anyone who tries. I’m certain this shop that you profiled already has all of the tools necessary to do their own from-scratch quilting (and as graduates of a UT textile design program, they ought to be far ahead of the likes of me and my simple desire to make as my foremothers did). So I wonder, if they ostensibly could do it the right way, why don’t they? I don’t know if they’ve taken the path they have for a lack of skill, or to hit their margins, or because they simply have not considered any other way. But at a glance, it looks lazy.

During our incredible winter storm not even a month ago, one of my best friends scrambled to find and deliver blankets to the unhoused people who live near her. I thought a lot about those people and her efforts to give them something to stay warm under as I read this, and I wondered: Would the people behind this company, the founder and the workers from the UT design program who begged to join, go make these same pieces in front of the unhoused of Austin? Would they dare lay down a perfectly good quilt, place a jacket piece pattern over it, and then hack away with their scissors? We’ve all seen the meme of the young boy looking at a smiling white woman with the words: “You mean to tell me you have so much water you sh!t in it?” This is that, but Austin-style. We wrap it up in a bow of funky style, input “vintage” materials, and voila! It’s worthy of a Texas Monthly profile. And it still stinks.

This feels like the sort of operation that, if it were bigger and based in Silicon Valley, it would do a “1-for-1” program where for every butchered quilt they sell as fashion, they will donate a cheap, polyester blanket (likely made with ethically questionable labor) to the poor/unhoused. And feel rather chuffed with themselves about it.

I believe that taking the easy way to manufacture a good for sale and destroying a perfectly useful household item in the process is ethically unsound. If that good is created just to serve fast fashion, then I’d say the whole situation is pretty gross.

I am a maker, and a business owner, and wearer of many hats. When it comes to making things that even one other person loves, I totally get the excitement of that moment. And how the moment can turn into a wave to ride to perceived greatness. But it’s always important to turn a critical eye to what’s being made, where the ingredients come from, who’s making it, and for every step along the way, WHY. And that’s the one question that was never answered in this piece, and that I don’t expect anyone associated with this brand to be able to answer:

Why is it okay to destroy a perfectly useful, useable, maintainable, long-lasting, handmade quilt for just another thing I call fashion?

Fannie Gunton, Austin

P.S. - For the record, I feel this way (all of the above) toward any person who seeks to destroy the art known as quilting for the sake of trendy fashion. This includes the subject of your profile piece, as well as her inspiration company, as well as other manufacturers who have made their name on Tik Tok doing the same thing. They all owe apologies to the accomplished texture workers who have preceded them in name, and exceeded them in experience.

This piece was originally published on my Hey World blog on the indicated publication date.