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The Creative Potential of Grandma’s 632 Wool Skirts

by frankie felegy

Red woolen skirts on a clothesline in the snow.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist
"Minnesota is a cold place. Wool is something good and practical and comfortable," Mae Colburn said. "Even beyond there, it's a tool for survival."

Artist Mae Colburn, whose grandmother collected all of them, is figuring out that answer—through cataloguing, repurposing, and pondering.

“It’s an enormous project,” says artist Mae Colburn. “You’ll see mini skirts and maxi skirts, A-line skirts, kilt and peg skirts . . . dating from as early as the 1940s through the 1990s.” 

If that sounds like a full closet, you’re right. The weaver and archivist counted up the collection: a whopping 632 wool skirts. 

Each one was hand-thrifted by Colburn’s grandmother, Audrey Huset, from Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Huset collected these pieces not to wear, but to use—eventually. 

“She was inspired, I think, by her own mother—and by the knowledge that skirts provided great material for craft,” says Colburn, wearing a wool skirt herself. 

An older woman wearing a wool outfit hangs wool plaid skirts on an indoor clothesline.
Photo Credit: frankie felegy | Arts Midwest
“Sometimes it takes a new generation to see new potential,” said Carol Colburn, pictured, whose mother collected these wool skirts. “And I think what Mae’s generation brings to it is this zeitgeist of sustainability, which was kind of ingrained in my mother growing up . . . But then we lost that for a while.”

Colburn recalls taking a few skirts and cutting them into strips with her grandmother to make rag rugs. But when Huset died in 2022, Colburn and her family were left with over 50 boxes of this en masse apparel.  

In the years since, the skirts have been central to Colburn’s project, answering the question: What to do with all of them? 

It had to start with cataloging. 

“Every morning, for two weeks, we would take out five more boxes of skirts and hang them on the clothesline. So it became this really incredible, colorful array of skirts on the clothesline every morning,” Colburn said during a recent event hosted by the Duluth Fiber Guild in northern Minnesota. 

That simple act of airing out the skirts at her folks’ home in Duluth turned into inspiration—Colburn’s photographer father Richard documented each and every piece. Alongside Colburn’s mother Carol, a costume historian, the trio documented each skirt’s color, shape, silhouette, pattern, and structure.

They took notes on pleats, waistbands, pockets (or not), labels, and zipper material. Colburn thought maybe they’d donate, sell, compost, or weave the skirts into new art. 

“We found such an amazing range,” Colburn said. “That was the first time that we really reckoned with the fact that in addition to being a great material source, the collection is also a really important historical record.” 

Minivan full of skirts, Colburn drove the 51 boxes to her studio in New York City. She hosted a ‘skirt party’ where friends could buy or repurpose them, some turning the skirts into quilts or motifs. 

Several plaid skirts hanging on an indoor clothesline before a red curtain.
Photo Credit: frankie felegy | Arts Midwest
Two women standing and smiling next to a black minivan in a driveway.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Mae Colburn, left, and her mother Carol Colburn prepare to drive all the skirts from their home in Duluth, Minnesota, to New York City.
A plaid skirt with small spotted stains hanging on a clothesline.
Photo Credit: frankie felegy | Arts Midwest
Though most of the skirts were well-preserved from moths and mice, some of the vintage, pre-worn items show leftover life.
Miniature wool skirts hanging on Tinker Toy clotheslines.
Photo Credit: frankie felegy | Arts Midwest
The Duluth Fiber Guild and community members created miniature skirts and clotheslines, inspired by Minnesotan Audrey Huset’s collection. They were used as centerpieces for the spring luncheon which Mae Colburn spoke at.
Two light skinned hands holding a skirt with tags on it.
Photo Credit: frankie felegy | Arts Midwest
Each skirt was documented and labeled with one number (42) for the box and the other (519) for the skirt number.
A screenshot of eight different skirts catalogued online.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Eight of the 632 collected wool skirts in now-Mae Colburn’s digital archive.
A woman with light hair and light skin reaches into a box amid a room full of boxes.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Mae Colburn unpacks the dozens of boxes of skirts in her New York City studio.

Though her grandmother collected these skirts for decades, everything is ephemeral. 

“Things stay with us for a period, and then it moves on,” Colburn says. “I want to replace the collection of skirts with documentation of all the things that skirts can become.” 

Kate Lindello, an attendee at the Duluth event and founder of Noihsaf Bazaar, sees the collection as something very of-this-place.  

“Growing up here kind of provides this ample opportunity to be creative and immersive, and really connect to your surroundings, which to me happens to be really nature-based and tend towards natural fibers like wool,” she says.  

“Minnesota is not known for fashion, necessarily,” she says, but maybe these 600+ skirts are a peek into practicality, regional identity, and upper Midwest style—for every season.