Scraps | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Offering creative, alternative approaches to confronting textile waste, Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse presents the work of three designers who put sustainability at the heart of the design process: Luisa Cevese, founder of Riedzioni in Milan; Christina Kim, founder of dosa, inc., in Los Angeles; and Reiko Sudo, managing director at NUNO in Tokyo. Each designer’s practice involves innovative and sophisticated reuse of textile materials and resources, while engaging in preservation of local craft traditions. Through more than forty works, the exhibition explores key facets of sustainability, such as the efficient use of materials and resources, the preservation of local craft traditions and the integration of new technologies in the recycling process.

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Exhibition Highlights

Luisa Cevese working on “Spreads Threads” mat © Luisa Cevese Riedizioni

Bag With Zip, Square Basket, 2013; silk threads, polyurethane; 24×19×19 cm (9 7/16×7 1/2×7 1/2 in.); courtesy of Luisa Cevese Riedizioni; Photo by Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution

Kibiso bundles; courtesy of Tsuruoka Fabric Industry Cooperative (Tsuruoka Yamagata, Japan); Photo by Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution

Kibiso Stripe, 2008; designed by Reiko Sudo (Japanese, b. 1953), hand-woven by Tsuruoka Fabric Industry Cooperative (Yamagata, Japan); Plain woven raw silk and kibiso; 325.1 x 50.8cm (128 x 20 in.); Gift of NUNO Corporation, 2009-48-4; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Photo by Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution

Appliqué artisan basting scraps onto base cloth, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, 2007 © Christina Kim for dosa inc.

2nd generation jamdani; Eungie skirt in satyajit color, Spring 2008 collection; designed by Christina Kim, produced by dosa inc. © dosa inc.

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