Quilt Coats, The Path of Totality, and Link Love
Some goodness for your weekend
We are in the path of totality for the eclipse this Monday and it also happens to be my oldest and dearest friend’s birthday, so we will be double dipping from the barrel of pure goodness on April 8th. It has been the most flip-floppiest of springs here in New York, temps in the 70s a few weeks ago and a blanket of snow yesterday and today. Monday looks to be clear, warm, and if March came in like a lamb and out like a lion, perhaps April will be the opposite.
I and a group of nearly 20 others will leave for Greece in two weeks. It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve traveled overseas and I feel a bit anxious about the whole thing, not the least of which is because shoulder season traveling means more uncertainty in the weather. Do I bring a coat? Do I bring a swimsuit? Do I bring both?
Despite having lived in the northern reaches of New York for four years now, I still only have one coat I wear most of the time, a Patagonia Better Sweater. But during a search for a light jacket that isn’t too bulky, I went on an Internet deep dive into the world of the bulkiest coat trend of the 2020s, Quilt Coats.
I first saw a Quilt Coat when a favorite instagram follow of mine, rudyjude made some for herself and her sister. A best as I can find, Quilt Coats weren’t invented by Julie O’Rourke, even if they were popularized by her and others like her in recent years. Psychic Outlaw, a Texas based company, turns out a copious amount of them made and remade from old quilts they find at auction or online. Other makers, like the young, sexy Tristan Detwiler, designer of STAN, have found a niche with jackets made from any old fabric or textile, popularizing them with his can’t-look-away Instagram reels. Tristan made a whole suit from old quilted fabric that found its home in the Smithsonian for a while. Writer, educator, and quilter Mary Fons has a Lot of Big Feelings about this cutting-up-quilts trend and made a whole YouTube video about it, which, yes, I watched in its entirety.1After reading more, I can’t say I blame her, some of these quilts quite literally hold important American history upon them. Zak Foster, instead of cutting up old quilts, has taken to making new ones intended solely for wrapping the bodies of their owners in when they die. Despite the heated opinions from makers and remakers, GenZ doesn’t seem to be quitting this quilting frenzy anytime soon.
I myself, haven’t given into the craze, although afore-mentioned oldest and dearest friend gave me a thrifted pile of quilt pieces that languished in a baggie for a few years before we appliquéd some of them to t-shirts last summer. Every time I wear it, I get compliments. Every time I wear it, I wonder who chose those fabrics and cut them all into tiny diamonds with the hopes of making a quilt from them. I think about who the quilt was for and whether they ever wondered what happened to the well-intentioned effort.