Fashion designer Meg Knudsen essentially grew up at Shelburne Farms, the subject of this week’s cover story. “I’ve been going to summer camps there since I could walk,” the artist said.
Knudsen’s mom is a farm and forest educator at the sustainability and agriculture nonprofit founded on the former Webb estate. Knudsen, now 22 and living in Burlington, started volunteering at age 12 in the Children’s Farmyard, teaching kids to milk cows and make wool bracelets, and later became a camp counselor and worked for six seasons at the Shelburne Farms Inn, including a stint this year as a bartender. No matter the job, Knudsen has a deep attachment to the place: “I just get to be surrounded by beautiful, extravagant history all the time.”
Before graduating in May from the fashion design program at Marist University in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Knudsen, who uses they/them pronouns, spent more than a year working on an original collection called “Reframed: A Curated Homage” — naturally, drawing inspiration from Shelburne Farms. “I really wanted to focus on the restoration process that the inn went through in the 1980s,” Knudsen said. They based each look on a different room in the house.
Though these specific looks aren’t for sale, they will be on display along with more wearable pieces for sale on September 26 at Hudson Valley Sustainable Fashion Week in Red Hook, N.Y.
More than historical clothing silhouettes or tailoring techniques, Knudsen is interested in the concept of restoration. Reading about the history of the inn, the designer recalled being particularly struck by how craftspeople stripped pieces of furniture down to the frames, completely rebuilding the upholstery.
“I was like, Oh, my gosh,” Knudsen said. “That’s what I like to do with a lot of the things I make already.”
The designer often sources stained or damaged garments, upcycling them into something new. “You can pay an ode to the life that it previously lived while still visibly mending it and bringing it into a modern context — and that’s what they were doing with that space.”
Knudsen’s looks will spark recognition and joy in anyone who played dress-up with the curtains as a kid. The Dining Room dress doesn’t hide the fact that it has been knitted together from doilies and lace tablecloths. (Indeed, it hides remarkably little.) An antique brass chain framing the model’s bare back — inspired by light fixtures — adds edginess. Draping and off-kilter lines create long, elegant silhouettes; beaded and embroidered details enhance already luscious vintage fabrics.
Like the rooms of the inn, Knudsen’s pieces each have their own stories. One look is made from their grandmother’s wedding dress, amply appliquéd with crocheted doilies and beaded flowers made from velvets and brocades to cover up stains. “My dad thought they were gravy stains, which I think is hilarious,” Knudsen said. “Did someone just, like, throw gravy on her at the wedding?”
Knudsen has been apprenticing as a tattoo artist and used the technique on leather in some of the garments, such as elbow patches on a smoking jacket-inspired coat. Rather than the traditional college professor look, these patches are thick and deliberate, with a floral pattern in white ink. They are emblematic of the boldness with which Knudsen approaches their work.
Mending, traditionally a subtle art, takes center stage in Knudsen’s collection. It’s a practice that many artists are rediscovering, and one that goes back a long way. For some gorgeously lavish examples, pay a visit to the collection of 19th century crazy quilts — not at Shelburne Farms, but just down the road at its institutional cousin, Shelburne Museum.
Learn more about Meg Knudsen on Instagram: @igostabstabwithneedles.
This article appears in Sep 17-23 2025.
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