Audrey Huset loved dancing, holidays, and playing the accordion, but no hobby was more pronounced—or tangible—than the Minnesota native’s passion for collecting vintage wool skirts.
“She might have had, at some point, over a thousand,” Huset’s granddaughter, Mae Colburn, tells Vogue. A Brooklyn-based artist specializing in weaving rag rugs from worn or discarded fabrics, Colburn and her parents began sorting through her grandmother’s skirt collection after the matriarch died in 2022. Naturally, they considered transforming some skirts into rugs, which Colburn’s family had done before. “Many rugs that I grew up with in my family’s home were woven with wool from skirts,” she says, noting the connection between her Midwest upbringing and the artistic medium she ended up pursuing.
As they sorted through the collection, though, they were instead inspired to archive it—a project that spoke to their collective interests and skill sets. Colburn’s mother and father have had long careers as professors of costume design and photography, respectively, “and because I studied art history,” Colburn explains, “research, writing, and archiving [have] always been a really big part of what I do, with a focus on textiles in both art and fashion.”
Together the family sorted, organized, and photographed 632 vintage wool skirts, spanning decades and in a range of colors, plaids, and silhouettes. The physical archive is in Colburn’s Brooklyn studio—which she welcomes the public to view from time to time—and the digital archive is online. Here, the artist shares more on the mesmerizing archive and how it came to be.
Vogue: Tell me about your grandmother. What was she like, and how would you describe her style?
Mae Colburn: She was very warm, very gentle, and she had a wonderful laugh. She loved to celebrate and dance, and she loved holidays. She played the accordion too.
In her 20s, she’d worked as an executive secretary for a company in Minneapolis, and she was very proud of that work. I got to know her when she was already peak grandma in the ’90s, so as far as I remember, she was always very coordinated but also very casual. She would wear slacks with an elastic waistband and a sweatshirt, maybe with a decorative pattern. And she always wore Reebok Princess shoes in either black or white. She had many boxes of those in her closet. My mom remembers her wearing much more tailored clothing—like a skirt suit with a matching jacket, gloves, and hat. She would likely have made all these things because she was a really expert home sewer. As far as my mom knew, she didn’t subscribe to Vogue, but she probably bought Vogue patterns in the fabric store and used those to make some of her tailored outfits.
Do you know what prompted your grandmother to start collecting skirts?
She started collecting much later in life, and she collected far beyond what she could actually wear. So I think she was collecting for the love of wool skirts, honestly—and so that future generations would have access to beautiful, high-quality wool.
How did the idea to document her skirt collection come about?
She died in 2022 at 99; she lived a really long life. At that point, the skirts were in boxes in my parents’ garage, and they had been there for 10 years. We were left with the question: What to do with all of them? Using a couple of skirts, I ended up weaving a square-foot sample to see how much rag rug we could weave with the collection if we chose to do that. A thousand square feet. That’s a lot of rag rug.
Opening the boxes forced us to confront the fact that the collection has value beyond weaving material; it has a lot of historical value too. As the decades have passed, that historical value has grown. So we laid out two boxes of skirts in the driveway, took a look, and were really amazed. We saw skirts with International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union labels, which you don’t see anymore; lots of Pendleton labels, which is the high mark of the American woolen industry; and a Christian Dior label, which was really surprising to us. I’m not sure if it was an actual Christian Dior skirt, but who knows?
It seemed like before we did anything with the collection, whether we disperse it or sell it or place it in a museum or weave it into rugs, we should at least document them all.
How did you go about archiving them?
It’s perfect that my mom knows all about clothes as a clothing historian and my dad is a photographer, so we all worked very closely. We put the skirts on a clothesline so they could air out before we photographed them, and that was amazing for all the neighbors to see. Next, we recorded descriptions of each one, and then my dad set up this area in his studio where he could photograph each skirt and create this nice, very consistent record of the collection. That photographic record allowed us to make a website where you can simply scroll through all the colors and patterns and enjoy the varieties.
Were there any details of the collection that stood out to you?
They’re all unique, and I think that’s in part because they’re all secondhand. Some are pristine, and some have signs of wear. There’s an amazing black, A-line maternity skirt that we came across, probably from the ’50s or ’60s. When we looked at the seams, we saw that it had been hastily taken in in the back, so it belonged to somebody who had a changing body, moving through different stages of pregnancy and life. The collection raises lots of questions about the people who owned the skirts before. There was one handmade skirt from the ’70s, and when we pulled it out, my mom said, “Wait, I made that skirt.” She was the first employee at Starbucks in Seattle in 1971, and she made the skirt to wear to work there in the cold and damp weather.
Your mom was the first employee at Starbucks?
She was. Long before it was corporate.
That’s some serious lore.
Yeah, it’s definitely lore. There is another skirt that my mom was excited about; the label says Minnesota Woolen Company, and it’s a junior-size skirt. It’s very playful, very kicky; it’s pink and purple. Minnesota Woolen Company is actually based in Duluth, Minnesota, which is where my parents live, so my mom’s doing lots of research into this company, and we’re hopeful that the skirt can be placed in a museum collection in Minnesota, where it can be appreciated.
Have you worn any of the skirts?
I don’t wear them, but my mom certainly has. Because I’m working with them in this way, I think I need to keep some distance. So I keep the skirts in my studio, and I keep my wardrobe separate at my apartment.
Are you a vintage shopper?
Certainly—my grandma taught me well. I remember going to Unique, which was her favorite thrift store in St. Paul, where many of the skirts came from. She would look at the colors but also touch every single one, which showed me how wonderful and important touch is in assessing the quality of a vintage item.
What inspired you to make the archive public?
We got really excited about understanding the skirts within a historical arc, and the archive offers a glimpse into the clothing history of the second half of the 20th century. The wool industry has transformed tremendously; you really can’t find this high-quality wool in this many colors and patterns anymore. So there’s a lot of history there that’s exciting to think and talk about and share with people, and I’ve also found that this is a really wonderful way for people to think about their own wardrobes and all the things that fill the nooks and crannies of their basements, garages, and closets.
Exploring the politics of gender and skirts is interesting to me too. I’ve really enjoyed conversations that have emerged as I’ve been sharing this story with women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who remember this pivot from having to wear skirts in most public settings to wearing pants. Wearing pants to work for the first time is a day that they remember almost like they remember what they wore on their wedding day. It’s a really important moment.
