Tristan Detwiler is big on TikTok. In 2021, that’s nearly as important as having your collection stocked in top retailers or being featured in magazines (some would say more so). Detwiler’s followers on the platform—133,000 and counting—tune in to watch the 23-year-old cut up antique blankets and quilts, some dating back to the 1800s, and transform them into chore jackets, Baja hoodies, board shorts, and cocoon coats. The videos offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process and reaffirm Detwiler’s skills as a maker; when he wasn’t competing on University of Southern California’s surf team, he was taking fashion design classes and customizing his own clothes. (A regular hashtag on his page is #menwhosew; unsurprisingly, it isn’t one of the app’s most popular tags.)
Upcycled quilted jackets are Detwiler’s calling card, with boxy, unisex fits that accommodate a multitude of sizes, genders, and ages. To hear him tell it, he made his first one in college to replace the quilts he draped over his shoulders for chilly mornings on the beach, but fell in love with the story behind old textiles, quilts in particular. In 2018, he joined the Bumann Quilters of Olivenhain, a group of ladies who have been quilting for decades. In addition to sharing the stories of their quilts and teaching Detwiler their techniques, they’ve gifted him with textiles and heirlooms to use in his collection. “I’ve gotten some hate on TikTok for cutting up some of these quilts,” he said with a laugh. “But I see it as preserving their story.”
The opening jacket in his fall 2021 collection was made from one of those gifted quilts, a 1920s “one patch” style in a checkerboard motif. It was large enough to make a matching pair of pants too. The full look was Detwiler’s main development for fall, an evolution from the one-off jackets and shorts he started out with in 2019. The second outfit’s ivory coat, chore jacket, and pants were all cut from the same 20th-century “wedding quilt,” while other looks had a more haphazard mix. A jewel-toned jacket made from an 1890 Amish quilt was paired with trousers cut from a 1980s screen-printed potato sack. (It’s worth mentioning that these items are already available to buy on Detwiler’s website; since they’re one- or few-of-a-kind, fashion’s usual cadence doesn’t really apply.)
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