Dress the history of fashion is a production of iHeart Radio.

Over seven billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common.

Every day, we all get dressed.

Welcome to Dress the history of fashion, a podcast where we explore the who

what when of why we wear we are fashion historians and your hosts April Callahan and Cassidy

Zachary. So dress listeners like myself many of you might be familiar with the recent and widely

publicized collaboration between fashion designer Greg Lauren and 14 quilt makers from the

community of Boykin, Alabama better known as G's Bend. Lauren fashion 96 garments out of 270

panels created by hand by the G's Bend quilters. But this high profile collaboration is only the

latest to recognize and celebrate the artistry of the same cultural bearers of G's Bend quilt making

tradition. Yes, and this year marks 20 years since Houston Museum of Fine Arts 2002 landmark

exhibition, the quilts of G's Bend, which was instrumental in bringing international recognition

to G's Bend living textile heritage, you know, directly challenging the artistic canon by

elevating the quilt making craft to the place of fine art. And fast forward to today,

G's Bend quilts are found in permanent collections of over 20 leading museums and also have been

the subject of numerous subsequent exhibitions. They are also highly sought after collectors items

with many of the quilt makers themselves being represented by galleries all around the world.

Yeah, and perhaps no organization, however, has done more to promote the G's Bend quilters than

the nonprofit Souls Grown Deep, which is dedicated to documenting preserving and promoting black

artists from the south. And they have done incredible work advocating for these artists,

rightful recognition and inclusion and then contemporary and historical canon of American art.

While helping to place these artists work in museum collections around the world, the organization

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