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‘Thrift Style” opens Oct. 21 through April 30 in the Quarton Gallery.

Thrift Style explores the reuse of feed sacks to make clothing and other household objects and illuminates how the “upcycling” of these bags mutually benefited twentieth-century consumers and businesses. With 41 works from patterns to garments, it serves as an example of past ingenuity that can inform today’s efforts towards sustainability.

The exhibition, organized by the Historic Costume and Textile Museum and the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, both at Kansas State University, provides a nostalgic view into American ingenuity, sensibility, and optimism during a particularly challenging time of economic hardship and war—the period of the Great Depression and World War II. The reuse of feed, flour, and sugar sacks was a cost-saving and resource-saving approach employed by homemakers to make new items to meet their families’ needs.

Thrift Style is organized by ExhibitsUSA, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance.

The exhibit will be on display from October 21, 2023 to April 30, 2024 in the temporary galleries of the Hoover Presidential Museum.

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