March 17, 2017 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Irvington, NY & New York City
Registration Deadline: March 7th
[Image: Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; photo Matt Flynn]
Registration Details
Registration opens February 10. Registration is limited to members for the first week of registration and opens to non-members on February 17. Join at anytime to ensure your space in these popular programs.
Member Rate: $125
Nonmember Rate: $145
Student and New Professional Member Rate: $45
The deadline to apply for a scholarship has passed
For questions about the program please contact Susan Brown
For questions about registration please contact Caroline Charuk
Program Description
The textile and apparel industries are among the most polluting in the world. Join TSA for a day of discussion about the future of textile recycling, and a celebration of contemporary designers who are challenging the disposable fashion paradigm by designing beautiful textiles, fashion and accessories from pre- and post-consumer textile waste.
The day will begin with a special behind-the-scenes look at Eileen Fisher’s Green Eileen recycling center in Irvington, New York, where gently-used clothing is cleaned, repaired and re-sold to support organizations that empower women and girls. At Eileen Fisher LAB, Creative Director Sigi Ahl will explain some of the ingenious solutions the team has developed for re-purposing stained or damaged garments that cannot be resold, using the techniques of needle felting, natural dyeing, and re-sewing.
After lunch and an opportunity to visit the LAB store, which offers recycled clothing and one-of-a-kind sample pieces alongside the current collection, we will head into Manhattan for a tour of the exhibition Scraps: Fashion, Textiles and Creative Reuse with curators Susan Brown and Matilda McQuaid. The exhibition, on view at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, showcases the work of three designers using pre-consumer textile waste to make elegant textiles, clothing and accessories: Christina Kim of dosa, Los Angeles; Luisa Cevese of Riedizioni, Milan; and Reiko Sudo of Nuno, Tokyo.
Itinerary
10 am meet at Irvington Station, Irvington New York.*
10 am – 12:30 pm Tour Green Eileen recycling center, Eileen Fisher LAB, design studio, and factory with Sigi Ahl, Creative Director.
12:30 – 1:30 pm group luncheon
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Visit Eileen Fisher LAB store, opportunity to shop new collection, one-of-a-kind samples, and Green Eileen items.
2:45 Travel to Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue.*
4 pm – 5 pm Tour of Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse exhibition with curators Susan Brown and Matilda McQuaid.
5 pm End of program
*If you are traveling by train from New York City, take Metro North (Croton-Harmon Line) from Grand Central Terminal, departing at 9:00 am, arriving Irvington 9:42 am. One-way peak fare is $11.75. Return trip departs Irvington at 2:47 pm, arriving Grand Central at 3:28. One-way off-peak fare is $8.75.
If you are driving, there is a paid parking lot across the street from the Irvington train station. Near Cooper Hewitt, there is a parking lot at 60 East 90th Street.
Space is limited to 18 participants
Eileen Fisher factory in Irvington, NY
Program Hosts
In recent years, Eileen Fisher Inc. has become an industry leader in the movement for sustainability and social responsibility in apparel production. The company’s Vision 2020 Statement and Green Eileen clothing recycling program marked a serious commitment to becoming a zero-waste company.
Cynthia Power is the Facilitating Manager of Green Eileen. Every garment Green Eileen takes back is either resold, donated or turned into new products. Power is spearheading company efforts to turn unsellable garments into scalable, beautiful and sustainable products by developing a re-manufacturing center in Irvington, NY. Most recently, Cynthia led a group of design graduates to create a collection out of unsellable goods that was sold in August at Eileen Fisher’s Remade in the USA pop-up shop in Brooklyn, NY.
Sigi Ahl is Creative Director of Research and Development for Remade, which is tasked with designing systems for re-using the hundreds of thousands of garments which have been returned through Eileen Fisher’s take-back program. The LAB has developed a number of techniques, including natural dyeing, needle-felting, and piecing and sewing, to transform pre-owned clothing into beautiful Remade in America fashions and home accessories.
Susan Brown joined Cooper Hewitt in 2001, where she is Associate Curator of Textiles. She curated the highly successful exhibition Fashioning Felt, and has co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance, Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay, Quicktakes: Rodarte, and David Adjaye Selects. She has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and journals. She also teaches in the Masters’ Program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies offered by Cooper Hewitt with Parsons/The New School for Design, and lectures regularly for the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU.
Matilda McQuaid is Deputy Director of Curatorial and Head of Textiles at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She has organized numerous architecture and design exhibitions including Josef + Anni Albers: Designs for Living, Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance, Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay, and Tools: Extending Our Reach. Formerly at the Museum of Modern Art, New York for 15 years where she curated over 30 exhibitions, she is also an accomplished author and editor on art, architecture, and design, with many books, exhibition catalogues and articles to her credit.
Registration Fees
Members $125, Non-members $145, Students $45. The registration fee includes lunch and admission to Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The fee does not include transportation or parking expenses.
Web links
Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse
Metro North schedules & tickets
Accessibility
Some amount of walking will be required between and within Eileen Fisher facilities. Both Eileen Fisher Inc. and CHSDM are accessible.
Textiles Close Up is a series of study-workshops launched in 2013 that provides opportunities to examine textiles in leading museum and private collections, guided by renowned experts. Workshops focus on the exploration of the materials, techniques, styles, culture and history of selected textile traditions, which vary for each event. The format offers first-hand, close-up viewing of textiles in the storerooms, laboratories and study rooms of various institutions offering unprecedented access and learning opportunities.
