Even with endless amounts of cash, you'd likely find it hard to get New York's Museum of Modern Art to sell you Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Of course there's plenty of merch—"Starry Night" t-shirts, umbrellas, even a crochet Miffy doll—but for Jaimus Tailor, designer and founder of design studio Greater Goods, none would do. He'd have to make his own. And thus, "Vincent Van Gore-Tex" was born. But not after an incredible amount of labor.
Over 100 hours of sewing turned 10,000 hand cut pieces of discarded fabric into an incredible upcycled rendition of "Starry Night." Why would a studio best known for making upcycled apparel and accessories (like our own collaboration chalk bags) from discarded outerwear dedicate so much into making a single piece of art?
"Bridging the gap between textiles, upcycling, and art has always been a goal of mine," Tailor tells us. Recreating an iconic art piece, he said, is a way for Greater Goods to "showcase what upcycling can be."
The original "Starry Night" is rich in visual depth, largely because it is, quite literally, caked in layers of paint that extend off the surface of the canvas. To recreate the effect, Tailor and the Greater Goods team carefully selected thousands of small, wonkily shaped fabric offcuts left over from various other projects and community workshops, obsessing over choices around fabric placement and thread color.
The final piece, which will hang in the studio archive along some of the studio's other one-of-one creations, is a testament to the fact that attention and effort can turn many of the things we might just throw away into objects we could cherish for the rest of our lives. Or at least, objects that would go crazy at auction.
Reflecting on the piece, Tailor shares Vincent Van Gore-Tex "sits between sculpture and textiles which kinda reflects what GG is about: existing in between things and always evolving."
Though just like the real "Starry Night," "Vincent Van Gore-Tex" is not for sale.
Published 05-13-2025
