FASHION IN FEED BAGS

Yesterday was Earth Day, and as purveyors of vintage garments, we value the art of giving items a new lease on life. So, of course, we are very intrigued by these garments made using flour, grain, and sugar sacks – creating fashion from feed bags!

Featured in this post is a Mexican maize bag-turned-tunic, a pair of mini shorts sewn from a durum wheat bag, and some very patriotic sugar sack trousers, all from our archive.

Much like our recent investigation into the threadbare denim worn by farmers in Dorothea Lange’s photographs, turning grain sacks into clothing was a necessity for many Americans in rural states during the Great Depression.

 

In the 1940s, dry goods companies saw an opportunity to monetise the recycling of grain sacks and began printing colourful patterns on the bags, such as flowers or Disney characters, with logos printed in easily removable ink. Booklets with instructions and patterns for dresses, dolls, and children’s clothes were released, all in an attempt to shift public perception away from associating grain sack and flour bag garments with poverty and towards considering them fashionable items.

Soon, flour and sugar were packaged in paper bags, and with that change, this method of recycling materials more or less vanished by the 1960s.